[PATCH v3 1/4] drm/nouveau: unsubscribe the channel-kill event before the fence context
From: Marek Czernohous
Date: Wed Aug 12 2026 - 19:13:50 EST
From: Marek Czernohous <marek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nouveau_channel_del() tears the fence context down first and only drops
the channel-kill subscription later, in the middle of the nvif object
teardown:
if (chan->fence)
nouveau_fence(chan->cli->drm)->context_del(chan);
...
nvif_object_dtor(&chan->vram);
nvif_event_dtor(&chan->kill);
The subscribed handler is nouveau_channel_killed(), which calls
nouveau_channel_kill() and from there nouveau_fence_context_kill() on
chan->fence. A kill event delivered in that window takes fctx->lock and
walks fctx->pending on a fence context that context_del() has already
freed.
Nothing reaches this below Fermi today, because the subscription is
gated on FERMI_CHANNEL_GPFIFO and nothing kills a channel there. On
Fermi and newer the window is real but narrow, since a kill has to land
exactly while the channel is being destroyed. That is reason enough on
its own, which is why this carries a Fixes: tag. The last patch in this
series subscribes Tesla channels as well; nothing kills those today, so
it does not widen the exposure now, but it is the groundwork for a
recovery path that would, and the ordering is better fixed before that
lands than alongside it.
Drop the subscription before anything it depends on is torn down.
Fixes: ea13e5abf807 ("drm/nouveau: signal pending fences when channel has been killed")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5
Signed-off-by: Marek Czernohous <marek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_chan.c | 9 ++++++++-
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_chan.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_chan.c
index 598513f60449..f142f6310596 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_chan.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_chan.c
@@ -90,6 +90,14 @@ nouveau_channel_del(struct nouveau_channel **pchan)
{
struct nouveau_channel *chan = *pchan;
if (chan) {
+ /*
+ * Drop the kill-event subscription first. Its handler
+ * dereferences chan->fence, which the fence context teardown
+ * below frees, so leaving it armed across the teardown leaves
+ * a window for a use-after-free.
+ */
+ nvif_event_dtor(&chan->kill);
+
if (chan->fence)
nouveau_fence(chan->cli->drm)->context_del(chan);
@@ -100,7 +108,6 @@ nouveau_channel_del(struct nouveau_channel **pchan)
nvif_object_dtor(&chan->nvsw);
nvif_object_dtor(&chan->gart);
nvif_object_dtor(&chan->vram);
- nvif_event_dtor(&chan->kill);
nvif_object_dtor(&chan->user);
nvif_mem_dtor(&chan->mem_userd);
nouveau_vma_del(&chan->sema.vma);
--
2.54.0