Re: [PATCH v2] irqchip/gic-v4: Harden against bogus command line

From: Marc Zyngier

Date: Tue May 26 2026 - 08:25:22 EST


On Tue, 26 May 2026 12:26:18 +0100,
Mostafa Saleh <smostafa@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>

nit: $SUBJECT isn't quite telling the full story, and the command-line
is only a second order effect. Something like:

"irqchip/gic-v4: Don't advertise VLPIs if no ITS is probed"

actually describes the nature of the issue.

> When accidentally setting “kvm-arm.vgic_v4_enable=1” on the wrong
> setup that has no MSI controller device tree node (it exists but
> not used) and GICv4, it caused a panic as “gic_domain” is NULL and
> the kernel attempted to access its ops.
>
> Originally, I hit this on an older kernel, but was able to reproduce
> it on upstream with Qemu by hacking this unreasonable setup.
>
> [ 33.145536] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000028
> [ 33.145658] Mem abort info:
> [ 33.145751] ESR = 0x0000000096000006
> ...
> [ 33.154057] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 295 Comm: lkvm-static Not tainted 7.1.0-rc4-ge3f15ad3970e #5 PREEMPT
> [ 33.156922] Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT)
> [ 33.158780] pstate: 81402005 (Nzcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO +DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
> [ 33.160340] pc : __irq_domain_instantiate+0x1d4/0x578
> [ 33.162602] lr : __irq_domain_instantiate+0x1cc/0x578
>
> Set vLPI support to false at init time if the host has no ITS, so it
> propagates properly to kvm_vgic_global_state.has_gicv4.
>
> Suggested-by: Marc Zyngier <maz@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Mostafa Saleh <smostafa@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> ---
> v2: Fix the issue at construction as Marc suggested.
> ---
> drivers/irqchip/irq-gic-v3-its.c | 1 +
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/irqchip/irq-gic-v3-its.c b/drivers/irqchip/irq-gic-v3-its.c
> index 291d7668cc8d..d02cb9c17c0b 100644
> --- a/drivers/irqchip/irq-gic-v3-its.c
> +++ b/drivers/irqchip/irq-gic-v3-its.c
> @@ -5837,6 +5837,7 @@ int __init its_init(struct fwnode_handle *handle, struct rdists *rdists,
> its_acpi_probe();
>
> if (list_empty(&its_nodes)) {
> + rdists->has_vlpis = false;
> pr_warn("ITS: No ITS available, not enabling LPIs\n");
> return -ENXIO;
> }

With the above fixed:

Acked-by: Marc Zyngier <maz@xxxxxxxxxx>

M.

--
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.