Re: od_set_powersave_bias: NULL pointer dereference

From: Jacob Shin
Date: Thu Jun 27 2013 - 10:55:28 EST


On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 12:32:36PM +0530, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> On 26 June 2013 23:27, Jacob Shin <jacob.shin@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 08:02:29PM +0530, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> >> On 26 June 2013 19:58, Jacob Shin <jacob.shin@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> > On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:18:27PM +0530, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> >>
> >> >> I am not sure if this is enough. What if we had ondemand as the
> >> >> governor initially, then we changed it to something else. Now also
> >> >> cur_policy contains a address and isn't zero.
> >
> > I just tested this case with this patch applied, and did not have any
> > problems.
>
> Try this:
> - you need a system with multiple policy groups to test it
> - Suppose we have two groups of CPUs: 0 and 1
> - Set ondemand as governor for both
> - change governor of group 1 to something else (we still have valid policy
> struct in Ondemand)
> - offline all CPUs from group 1. this will free struct cpufreq_policy
> - Online these CPUs back, this will reallocate policy
> - Now run this function, the earlier policy struct is already freed and
> you are accessing it here.

Ah, I understand now.

>
> >> >> > cpumask_or(&done, &done, policy->cpus);
> >> >> > +
> >> >> > + if (policy->governor != &cpufreq_gov_ondemand)
> >> >> > + continue;
> >> >
> >> > This should catch that case no ?
> >>
> >> Policy might be freed and reallocated by then. And so doing
> >> policy->governor is dangerous.
> >
> > Are you worried that after we have passed the above if check, and
> > before we access ->tuner governor change might occur?
> >
> > Is there something synonymous to get/put_online_cpus() for cpufreq to
> > prevent governor change while we update ->tuner values?
> >
> > Otherwise, should just spinlock?
>
> No, i wasn't worrying about this but a sequence of events that I told to
> you earlier.
>
> Replying to your other mail:
> > Hm . any hints on how to check for if ondemand is running on this CPU
> > or not ? I'm not sure what the best way to handle this is ..
>
> Make cur_policy zero in cpufreq_governor_dbs() for
> CPUFREQ_GOV_STOP notification. This will make sure we use correct
> policy pointer.

Thanks for the tip :-)

Here is V2:

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