Re: [PATCH] mm: fix NULL NODE_DATA dereference for memoryless nodes on boot

[Mike Rapoport]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 22, 2026 at 01:44:51PM +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
> Commit d49004c5f0c1 ("arch, mm: consolidate initialization of nodes,
> zones and memory map") moved free_area_init() from setup_arch() to
> mm_core_init_early(), which runs after setup_arch() returns.
> 
> This changed the ordering relative to init_cpu_to_node() on x86. Before
> the commit, free_area_init() ran during paging_init() (called from
> setup_arch()) *before* init_cpu_to_node(). After the commit, it runs
> *after* init_cpu_to_node().
> 
> On machines with memoryless NUMA nodes (e.g., node 0 has CPUs but no
> memory), this causes a NULL pointer dereference:
> 
>  1. numa_register_nodes() skips memoryless nodes: no alloc_node_data()
>     and no node_set_online() for them.
>  2. init_cpu_to_node() sets memoryless nodes online (they have CPUs)
>     but does not allocate NODE_DATA.
>  3. free_area_init() checks "if (!node_online(nid))" to decide whether
>     to call alloc_offline_node_data(). Since the memoryless node is now
>     online, the allocation is skipped, leaving NODE_DATA(nid) == NULL.
>  4. The immediate "pgdat = NODE_DATA(nid)" dereferences NULL.
> 
> The crash happens before console_init(), so no output is visible without
> earlyprintk. With earlyprintk enabled, the following panic is observed:
> 
>  BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 000000000002a1e0
>  Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
>  RIP: 0010:free_area_init_node+0x3a/0x540
>  Call Trace:
>   <TASK>
>   free_area_init+0x331/0x4e0
>   start_kernel+0x69/0x4a0
>   x86_64_start_reservations+0x24/0x30
>   x86_64_start_kernel+0x125/0x130
>   common_startup_64+0x13e/0x148
>   </TASK>
>  Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!
> 
> Fix this by checking "if (!NODE_DATA(nid))" instead of
> "if (!node_online(nid))". This directly tests whether the per-node data
> structure needs to be allocated, regardless of the node's online status.
 
I believe that this change is fine for !x86 as well, but it deserves a
sentence in the commit log.

> Cc: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <rppt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Fixes: d49004c5f0c1 ("arch, mm: consolidate initialization of nodes, zones and memory map")
> Signed-off-by: Ming Lei <ming.lei@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  mm/mm_init.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/mm_init.c b/mm/mm_init.c
> index 61d983d23f55..9d63cab36204 100644
> --- a/mm/mm_init.c
> +++ b/mm/mm_init.c
> @@ -1896,7 +1896,7 @@ static void __init free_area_init(void)
>  	for_each_node(nid) {
>  		pg_data_t *pgdat;
>  
> -		if (!node_online(nid))
> +		if (!NODE_DATA(nid))
>  			alloc_offline_node_data(nid);

A comment that says that if an architecture didn't allocate node data, we
presume that the node is memoryless and offline would be nice here.

>  
>  		pgdat = NODE_DATA(nid);
> -- 
> 2.52.0
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.