[PATCH] tty: abort break signalling on hangup

From: Johan Hovold

Date: Thu Sep 03 2026 - 13:33:47 EST


The break ioctls can race with hangup and end up calling into a tty
driver for a device that is already gone or powered down.

Drivers must handle this race, but TCSBRK and TCSBRKP should still be
aborted to avoid calling back into the driver after a user-controlled
timeout (possibly even after the tty has been reopened).

Note that drivers should disable any break state on shutdown so just
return on hangup (calling break_ctl() again is racy and will most likely
fail for drivers handling the race).

Fixes: f34d7a5b7010 ("tty: The big operations rework")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx # 2.6.26
Signed-off-by: Johan Hovold <johan@xxxxxxxxxx>
---

This is related to the USB serial and serial core fixes I just posted:

https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260903163146.1498497-1-johan@xxxxxxxxxx/
https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260903163439.1499055-1-johan@xxxxxxxxxx

Will take a closer look at the other TTY drivers in the coming days.

Johan


drivers/tty/tty_io.c | 36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
include/linux/tty.h | 1 +
2 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/tty/tty_io.c b/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
index 48569035da56..1c30faae9ec1 100644
--- a/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
+++ b/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
@@ -620,6 +620,8 @@ static void __tty_hangup(struct tty_struct *tty, int exit_session)

tty_ldisc_hangup(tty, cons_filp != NULL);

+ wake_up_interruptible(&tty->break_wait);
+
spin_lock_irq(&tty->ctrl.lock);
clear_bit(TTY_THROTTLED, &tty->flags);
clear_bit(TTY_DO_WRITE_WAKEUP, &tty->flags);
@@ -2431,6 +2433,7 @@ static int tiocgetd(struct tty_struct *tty, int __user *p)
* send_break - performed time break
* @tty: device to break on
* @duration: timeout in mS
+ * @file: file object
*
* Perform a timed break on hardware that lacks its own driver level timed
* break functionality.
@@ -2438,8 +2441,9 @@ static int tiocgetd(struct tty_struct *tty, int __user *p)
* Locking:
* @tty->atomic_write_lock serializes
*/
-static int send_break(struct tty_struct *tty, unsigned int duration)
+static int send_break(struct file *file, struct tty_struct *tty, unsigned int duration)
{
+ long timeout;
int retval;

if (tty->ops->break_ctl == NULL)
@@ -2453,13 +2457,26 @@ static int send_break(struct tty_struct *tty, unsigned int duration)
return -EINTR;

retval = tty->ops->break_ctl(tty, -1);
- if (!retval) {
- msleep_interruptible(duration);
- retval = tty->ops->break_ctl(tty, 0);
- } else if (retval == -EOPNOTSUPP) {
- /* some drivers can tell only dynamically */
- retval = 0;
+ if (retval) {
+ if (retval == -EOPNOTSUPP) {
+ /* some drivers can tell only dynamically */
+ retval = 0;
+ }
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
+
+ timeout = msecs_to_jiffies(duration);
+ timeout = wait_event_interruptible_timeout(tty->break_wait,
+ tty_hung_up_p(file),
+ timeout);
+ /* return early on hangup only */
+ if (timeout > 0) {
+ retval = -EIO;
+ goto out_unlock;
}
+
+ retval = tty->ops->break_ctl(tty, 0);
+out_unlock:
tty_write_unlock(tty);

if (signal_pending(current))
@@ -2727,10 +2744,10 @@ long tty_ioctl(struct file *file, unsigned int cmd, unsigned long arg)
* This is used by the tcdrain() termios function.
*/
if (!arg)
- return send_break(tty, 250);
+ return send_break(file, tty, 250);
return 0;
case TCSBRKP: /* support for POSIX tcsendbreak() */
- return send_break(tty, arg ? arg*100 : 250);
+ return send_break(file, tty, arg ? arg * 100 : 250);

case TIOCMGET:
return tty_tiocmget(tty, p);
@@ -3090,6 +3107,7 @@ struct tty_struct *alloc_tty_struct(struct tty_driver *driver, int idx)
init_ldsem(&tty->ldisc_sem);
init_waitqueue_head(&tty->write_wait);
init_waitqueue_head(&tty->read_wait);
+ init_waitqueue_head(&tty->break_wait);
INIT_WORK(&tty->hangup_work, do_tty_hangup);
mutex_init(&tty->atomic_write_lock);
spin_lock_init(&tty->ctrl.lock);
diff --git a/include/linux/tty.h b/include/linux/tty.h
index 0a46e4054dec..ad4e4a835f90 100644
--- a/include/linux/tty.h
+++ b/include/linux/tty.h
@@ -230,6 +230,7 @@ struct tty_struct {
struct fasync_struct *fasync;
wait_queue_head_t write_wait;
wait_queue_head_t read_wait;
+ wait_queue_head_t break_wait;
struct work_struct hangup_work;
void *disc_data;
void *driver_data;
--
2.55.0