> Upon an interrupt, a kernel routine uses this saved pointer with
> copy_from_user() to obtain a copy of that structure. [...]
this is a big no-no! Only kernel-space addresses (pointers) are guaranteed
to be preserved during context switches, user-space changes all the time.
The interrupt is not guaranteed to happen in the context of the 'relevant'
process - it will happen whenever the hardware generates it and in the
context of whatever process is running at that moment.
> every now and then the values in the structure are bogus!
yes, because occasionally the system is executing another process (or the
idle thread), in which context that user-space pointer makes no sense.
the solution: copy the data into kernel-space, then use this kernel-space
data from interrupts.
-- mingo
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