Re: [PATCH] Fix possible race with 4level-fixup.h

From: Nick Piggin
Date: Thu Feb 17 2005 - 03:36:44 EST


Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
Hi !

When using 4level-fixup.h, a PMD page may end up beeing freed before the
matching PGD entry is cleared due to the way the compatibility macros
work. This can cause nasty races on some architectures.

This patch fixes it by defining pud_clear() to be pgd_clear(). That
means we'll actually write 0 twice, a small price to pay here,
especially seeing how easy it is to convert to the new headers anyway
(hint hint, ppc & ppc64 patches as soon as 2.6.11 is out).

Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Index: linux-work/include/asm-generic/4level-fixup.h
===================================================================
--- linux-work.orig/include/asm-generic/4level-fixup.h 2005-01-24 17:09:49.000000000 +1100
+++ linux-work/include/asm-generic/4level-fixup.h 2005-02-17 18:10:38.000000000 +1100
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
#define pud_bad(pud) 0
#define pud_present(pud) 1
#define pud_ERROR(pud) do { } while (0)
-#define pud_clear(pud) do { } while (0)
+#define pud_clear(pud) pgd_clear((pgd_t *)(pud))

Just a small nit - no cast needed here.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/