[PATCH] gcov: use atomic counter updates to fix concurrent access crashes
From: Konstantin Khorenko
Date: Thu Apr 02 2026 - 10:22:11 EST
GCC's GCOV instrumentation can merge global branch counters with loop
induction variables as an optimization. In inflate_fast(), the inner
copy loops get transformed so that the GCOV counter value is loaded
multiple times to compute the loop base address, start index, and end
bound. Since GCOV counters are global (not per-CPU), concurrent
execution on different CPUs causes the counter to change between loads,
producing inconsistent values and out-of-bounds memory writes.
The crash manifests during IPComp (IP Payload Compression) processing
when inflate_fast() runs concurrently on multiple CPUs:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffd0a3c0902ffa
RIP: inflate_fast+1431
Call Trace:
zlib_inflate
__deflate_decompress
crypto_comp_decompress
ipcomp_decompress [xfrm_ipcomp]
ipcomp_input [xfrm_ipcomp]
xfrm_input
At the crash point, the compiler generated three loads from the same
global GCOV counter (__gcov0.inflate_fast+216) to compute base, start,
and end for an indexed loop. Another CPU modified the counter between
loads, making the values inconsistent — the write went 3.4 MB past a
65 KB buffer.
Add -fprofile-update=atomic to CFLAGS_GCOV at the global level in the
top-level Makefile. This tells GCC that GCOV counters may be
concurrently accessed, causing counter updates to use atomic
instructions (lock addq) instead of plain load/store. This prevents
the compiler from merging counters with loop induction variables.
Applying this globally rather than per-subsystem not only addresses the
observed crash in zlib but makes GCOV coverage data more consistent
overall, preventing similar issues in any kernel code path that may
execute concurrently.
Signed-off-by: Konstantin Khorenko <khorenko@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Peter Oberparleiter <oberpar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Peter Oberparleiter <oberpar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Makefile | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 6b1d9fb1a6b4..a55ad668d6ba 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -806,7 +806,7 @@ all: vmlinux
CFLAGS_GCOV := -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage
ifdef CONFIG_CC_IS_GCC
-CFLAGS_GCOV += -fno-tree-loop-im
+CFLAGS_GCOV += -fno-tree-loop-im -fprofile-update=atomic
endif
export CFLAGS_GCOV
--
2.43.5