Re: general protection fault in wb_workfn (2)

[Dmitry Vyukov]

On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 5:16 PM, Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 4:31 AM, Tetsuo Handa
>> <penguin-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> Dmitry Vyukov wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 3:45 PM, Tetsuo Handa
>>>> <penguin-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> > Dmitry, can you assign VM resources for a git tree for this bug? This bug wants to fight
>>>> > against https://github.com/google/syzkaller/blob/master/docs/syzbot.md#no-custom-patches ...
>>>>
>>>> Hi Tetsuo,
>>>>
>>>> Most of the reasons for not doing it still stand. A syzkaller instance
>>>> will produce not just this bug, it will produce hundreds of different
>>>> bugs. Then the question is: what to do with these bugs? Report all to
>>>> mailing lists?
>>>
>>> Is it possible to add linux-next.git tree as a target for fuzzing? If yes,
>>> we can try debug patches easily, in addition to find bugs earlier than now.
>>
>> syzbot tested linux-next and mmotm initially, but they were removed at
>> the request of kernel developers. See:
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/syzkaller/0H0LHW_ayR8/dsK5qGB_AQAJ
>> and:
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/syzkaller-bugs/FeAgni6Atlk/U0JGoR0AAwAJ
>> Indeed, linux-next produces around 50 assorted one-off unexplainable
>> bug reports.
>>
>>
>>>> I think the solution here is just to run syzkaller instance locally.
>>>> It's just a program anybody can run it on any kernel with any custom
>>>> patches. Moreover for local instance it's also possible to limit set
>>>> of tested syscalls to increase probability of hitting this bug and at
>>>> the same time filter out most of other bugs.
>>>
>>> If this bug is reproducible with VM resources individual developer can afford...
>>>
>>> Since my Linux development environment is VMware guests on a Windows PC, I can't
>>> run VM instance which needs KVM acceleration. Also, due to security policy, I can't
>>> utilize external VM resources available on the Internet, as well as I can't use ssh
>>> and git protocols. Speak of this bug, even with a lot of VM instances, syzbot can
>>> reproduce this bug only once or twice per a day. Thus, the question for me boils
>>> down to, whether I can reproduce this bug using one VMware guest instance with 4GB
>>> of memory. Effectively, I don't have access to environments for running syzkaller
>>> instance...
>>
>> Well, I don't know what to say, it does require some resources.
>>
>>>> Do we have any idea about the guilty subsystem? You mentioned
>>>> bdi_unregister, why? What would be the set of syscalls to concentrate
>>>> on?
>>>> I will do a custom run when I get around to it, if nobody else beats me to it.
>>>
>>> Because bdi_unregister() does "bdi->dev = NULL;" which wb_workfn() is hitting
>>> NULL pointer dereference.
>>
>> Right, wb_workfn is not a generic function, it's fs-specific function.
>>
>> Trying to reproduce this locally now.
>
>
> No luck so far.
>
> Trying to look from a different angle: is it possible that bdi->dev is
> not set yet, rather then already reset?


I was able to reproduce this once locally running syz-crush utility
replaying one of the crash logs. Now running with Tetsuo's patch.

I can say we hunting a very subtle race condition with short
inconsistency window, perhaps few instructions.