Re: [PATCH 1/2] coresight: tmc-etf: Fix NULL ptr dereference in tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf()

[Sai Prakash Ranjan]

On 2020-10-14 18:46, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
> On 10/14/2020 10:36 AM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
> > On 2020-10-13 22:05, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
> > > On 10/07/2020 02:00 PM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
> > > > There was a report of NULL pointer dereference in ETF enable
> > > > path for perf CS mode with PID monitoring. It is almost 100%
> > > > reproducible when the process to monitor is something very
> > > > active such as chrome and with ETF as the sink and not ETR.
> > > > Currently in a bid to find the pid, the owner is dereferenced
> > > > via task_pid_nr() call in tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf() and with
> > > > owner being NULL, we get a NULL pointer dereference.
> > > >
> > > > Looking at the ETR and other places in the kernel, ETF and the
> > > > ETB are the only places trying to dereference the task(owner)
> > > > in tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf() which is also called from the
> > > > sched_in path as in the call trace. Owner(task) is NULL even
> > > > in the case of ETR in tmc_enable_etr_sink_perf(), but since we
> > > > cache the PID in alloc_buffer() callback and it is done as part
> > > > of etm_setup_aux() when allocating buffer for ETR sink, we never
> > > > dereference this NULL pointer and we are safe. So lets do the
> > >
> > > The patch is necessary to fix some of the issues. But I feel it is
> > > not complete. Why is it safe earlier and not later ? I believe we are
> > > simply reducing the chances of hitting the issue, by doing this 
> > > earlier than
> > > later. I would say we better fix all instances to make sure that the
> > > event->owner is valid. (e.g, I can see that the for kernel events
> > > event->owner == -1 ?)
> > >
> > > struct task_struct *tsk = READ_ONCE(event->owner);
> > >
> > > if (!tsk || is_kernel_event(event))
> > >    /* skip ? */
> >
> > Looking at it some more, is_kernel_event() is not exposed
> > outside events core and probably for good reason. Why do
> > we need to check for this and not just tsk?
>
> Because the event->owner could be :
>
>  = NULL
>  = -1UL  // kernel event
>  = valid.

Yes I understood that part, but here we were trying to
fix the NULL pointer dereference right and hence the
question as to why we need to check for kernel events?
I am no expert in perf but I don't see anywhere in the
kernel checking for is_kernel_event(), so I am a bit
skeptical if exporting that is actually right or not.

Thanks,
Sai

--
QUALCOMM INDIA, on behalf of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a 
member
of Code Aurora Forum, hosted by The Linux Foundation