Re: [PATCH v2 3/5] x86/alternative: exclude text poking against change_page_attr()

From: Jiri Slaby

Date: Tue Aug 25 2026 - 05:40:14 EST


On 13. 08. 26, 11:01, Mike Rapoport wrote:
From: Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@xxxxxxx>

From time to time, the following BUG can be observed[0]:

kernel BUG at arch/x86/kernel/alternative.c:2576!
Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 355 Comm: (udev-worker) Not tainted 7.1.3-1-default #1 PREEMPT(full) openSUSE Tumbleweed 8c1795b03ec64f997e57a8ad38b1161e3b98da64
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022
RIP: 0010:__text_poke+0x2aa/0x450
Call Trace:
<TASK>
smp_text_poke_batch_finish+0x2a7/0x320
__static_call_transform+0xb7/0x220
arch_static_call_transform+0x5b/0xb0
__static_call_init+0xe9/0x270
static_call_module_notify+0x11f/0x150
notifier_call_chain+0x61/0xe0
blocking_notifier_call_chain_robust+0x63/0xc0
load_module+0x1c92/0x20c0
init_module_from_file+0xd8/0x140
idempotent_init_module+0x100/0x2f0
__x64_sys_finit_module+0x71/0xe0
do_syscall_64+0xe1/0x610
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

which matches the following BUG_ON in alternative.c:
/*
* If something went wrong, crash and burn since recovery paths are not
* implemented.
*/
BUG_ON(!pages[0] || (cross_page_boundary && !pages[1]));

This can happen if vmalloc_to_page() fails, for any reason. Such can happen
if text poking races with CPA, which can possibly result in the collapsing
of page tables (or breaking of PMD hugepages). It is not a problem for most
users of vmalloc_to_page() (they solely own the vmalloc'd range) but, when
CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_EXECMEM_ROX=y, various modules own a single execmem vmalloc
range, and can call set_memory_*() in parallel on it. This can happen to
race against __text_poke and cause havoc in vmalloc_to_page().

Fix it by excluding against CPA using the init_mm mmap read lock.

Fixes: 64f6a4e10c05 ("x86: re-enable EXECMEM_ROX support")
Reported-by: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@xxxxxxxxxx>

FWIW
Tested-by: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@xxxxxxxxxx>

We have not seen any BUGs since applied to the SUSE's kernel.
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1271202#c26

thanks,
--
js
suse labs