Re: [PATCH] perf: Fix oops when kthread execs user process

[Will Deacon]

On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 07:32:28PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 04:32:24PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> > On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 04:01:03PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 08:31:29PM +0800, Young Xiao wrote:
> > > > When a kthread calls call_usermodehelper() the steps are:
> > > >   1. allocate current->mm
> > > >   2. load_elf_binary()
> > > >   3. populate current->thread.regs
> > > > 
> > > > While doing this, interrupts are not disabled. If there is a perf
> > > > interrupt in the middle of this process (i.e. step 1 has completed
> > > > but not yet reached to step 3) and if perf tries to read userspace
> > > > regs, kernel oops.
> > 
> > This seems to be because pt_regs(current) gives NULL for kthreads on Power.
> 
> 'funny' thing that, perf_sample_regs_user() seems to assume that
> anything with current->mm is in fact a user task, and that assumption is
> just plain wrong, consider use_mm().

Right, I suppose that was attempting to handle interrupt skid from the PMU
overflow?

> So I'm thinking the right thing to do here is something like the below;
> umh should get PF_KTHREAD cleared when it passes exec(). And this should
> also fix the power splat I'm thinking.
> 
> ---
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/events/core.c b/kernel/events/core.c
> index abbd4b3b96c2..9929404b6eb9 100644
> --- a/kernel/events/core.c
> +++ b/kernel/events/core.c
> @@ -5923,7 +5923,7 @@ static void perf_sample_regs_user(struct perf_regs *regs_user,
>  	if (user_mode(regs)) {
>  		regs_user->abi = perf_reg_abi(current);
>  		regs_user->regs = regs;
> -	} else if (current->mm) {
> +	} else if (!(current->flags & PF_KTHREAD) && current->mm) {
>  		perf_get_regs_user(regs_user, regs, regs_user_copy);

Makes sense, but under which circumstances would we have a NULL mm here?

Will