Re: KCSAN: data-race in taskstats_exit / taskstats_exit

From: Balbir Singh
Date: Thu Nov 07 2019 - 19:54:48 EST


On Wed, 2019-11-06 at 11:23 +0100, Marco Elver wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 at 01:10, Balbir Singh <bsingharora@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 2019-10-04 at 21:26 -0700, syzbot wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > syzbot found the following crash on:
> > >
> > > HEAD commit: b4bd9343 x86, kcsan: Enable KCSAN for x86
> > > git tree: https://github.com/google/ktsan.git kcsan
> > > console output: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/x/log.txt?x=125329db600000
> > > kernel config:
> > > https://syzkaller.appspot.com/x/.config?x=c0906aa620713d80
> > > dashboard link:
> > > https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=c5d03165a1bd1dead0c1
> > > compiler: gcc (GCC) 9.0.0 20181231 (experimental)
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, I don't have any reproducer for this crash yet.
> > >
> > > IMPORTANT: if you fix the bug, please add the following tag to the
> > > commit:
> > > Reported-by: syzbot+c5d03165a1bd1dead0c1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > >
> > > ==================================================================
> > > BUG: KCSAN: data-race in taskstats_exit / taskstats_exit
> > >
> > > write to 0xffff8881157bbe10 of 8 bytes by task 7951 on cpu 0:
> > > taskstats_tgid_alloc kernel/taskstats.c:567 [inline]
> > > taskstats_exit+0x6b7/0x717 kernel/taskstats.c:596
> > > do_exit+0x2c2/0x18e0 kernel/exit.c:864
> > > do_group_exit+0xb4/0x1c0 kernel/exit.c:983
> > > get_signal+0x2a2/0x1320 kernel/signal.c:2734
> > > do_signal+0x3b/0xc00 arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:815
> > > exit_to_usermode_loop+0x250/0x2c0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:159
> > > prepare_exit_to_usermode arch/x86/entry/common.c:194 [inline]
> > > syscall_return_slowpath arch/x86/entry/common.c:274 [inline]
> > > do_syscall_64+0x2d7/0x2f0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:299
> > > entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
> > >
> > > read to 0xffff8881157bbe10 of 8 bytes by task 7949 on cpu 1:
> > > taskstats_tgid_alloc kernel/taskstats.c:559 [inline]
> > > taskstats_exit+0xb2/0x717 kernel/taskstats.c:596
> > > do_exit+0x2c2/0x18e0 kernel/exit.c:864
> > > do_group_exit+0xb4/0x1c0 kernel/exit.c:983
> > > __do_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:994 [inline]
> > > __se_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:992 [inline]
> > > __x64_sys_exit_group+0x2e/0x30 kernel/exit.c:992
> > > do_syscall_64+0xcf/0x2f0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:296
> > > entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
> > >
> >
> > Sorry I've been away and just catching up with email
> >
> > I don't think this is a bug, if I interpret the report correctly it shows
> > a
> > race
> >
> > static struct taskstats *taskstats_tgid_alloc(struct task_struct *tsk)
> > {
> > struct signal_struct *sig = tsk->signal;
> > struct taskstats *stats;
> >
> > #1 if (sig->stats || thread_group_empty(tsk)) <- the check of sig-
> > >stats
> > goto ret;
> >
> > /* No problem if kmem_cache_zalloc() fails */
> > stats = kmem_cache_zalloc(taskstats_cache, GFP_KERNEL);
> >
> > spin_lock_irq(&tsk->sighand->siglock);
> > if (!sig->stats) {
> > #2 sig->stats = stats; <- here in setting sig->stats
> > stats = NULL;
> > }
> > spin_unlock_irq(&tsk->sighand->siglock);
> >
> > if (stats)
> > kmem_cache_free(taskstats_cache, stats);
> > ret:
> > return sig->stats;
> > }
> >
> > The worst case scenario is that we might see sig->stats as being NULL when
> > two
> > threads belonging to the same tgid. We do free up stats if we got that
> > wrong
> >
> > Am I misinterpreting the report?
> >
> > Balbir Singh.
>
> The plain concurrent reads/writes are a data race, which may manifest
> in various undefined behaviour due to compiler optimizations [1, 2].
> Note that, "data race" does not necessarily imply "race condition";
> some data races are race conditions (usually the more interesting
> bugs) -- but not *all* data races are race conditions (sometimes
> referred to as "benign races"). KCSAN reports data races according to
> the LKMM.
> [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/793253/
> [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/799218/
>
> If there is no race condition here that warrants heavier
> synchronization (locking etc.), we still have the data race which
> needs fixing by using marked atomic operations (READ_ONCE, WRITE_ONCE,
> atomic_t, etc.). We also need to consider memory ordering requirements
> (do we need smp_*mb(), smp_load_acquire/smp_store_release, ..)?
>
> In the case here, the pattern is double-checked locking, which is
> incorrect without atomic operations and the correct memory ordering.
> There is a lengthy discussion here:
>
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20191021113327.22365-1-christian.brauner@xxxxxxxxxx/
>
>

I am still not convinced unless someone can prove that unsigned long reads are
non-atomic, acquire/release and barriers semantics don't matter because the
code deals with the race inside of a lock if the read was spurious, The
assumption is based on the face that sig->stats can be NULL or the kzalloc'ed
value in all cases.

Balbir Singh.