Re: [PATCH v5 7/9] drivers/base/memory: count inherited poisoned frames into the block
From: sashiko-bot
Date: Tue Sep 15 2026 - 10:23:01 EST
Thank you for your contribution! Sashiko AI review found 1 potential issue(s) to consider:
- [Medium] mm: TOCTOU race in memblk_nr_poison_init() drops early MCE counts
--
commit a8282f47e9b2f9ae014e9948a2edfc336de13cd0
Author: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
drivers/base/memory: count inherited poisoned frames into the block
This commit initializes the poisoned frame count for memory blocks created
during early boot by scanning for pre-existing poisoned pages. It addresses
an issue where kexec-inherited poisoned frames would later cause a counter
underflow on unpoisoning, preventing the block from being onlined.
> diff --git a/drivers/base/memory.c b/drivers/base/memory.c
> index 5eead3346f1e3..49a33ddbb2e71 100644
> --- a/drivers/base/memory.c
> +++ b/drivers/base/memory.c
[ ... ]
> @@ -807,6 +812,7 @@ static int add_memory_block(unsigned long block_id, int nid, unsigned long state
> mem->state = state;
> mem->nid = nid;
> INIT_LIST_HEAD(&mem->group_next);
> + memblk_nr_poison_init(mem);
>
> #ifndef CONFIG_NUMA
> if (state == MEM_ONLINE)
[Severity: Medium]
Could this ordering create a Time-Of-Check to Time-Of-Use (TOCTOU) race
during early boot?
If a hardware machine check exception (MCE) occurs concurrently after
memblk_nr_poison_init() runs but before __add_memory_block() publishes the
block via xa_store(), does the memory_failure() worker set the page flag
but drop the block counter increment because memory_block_get() still
returns NULL?
If this concurrent increment is dropped, could a subsequent unpoison
operation underflow mem->nr_hwpoison to ULONG_MAX, permanently breaking
memory_block_online() with -EHWPOISON?
[ ... ]
> @@ -1251,4 +1257,33 @@ static unsigned long memblk_nr_poison(struct memory_block *mem)
> {
> return atomic_long_read(&mem->nr_hwpoison);
> }
> +
> +/*
> + * Frames a kexec handed over are flagged as they reach the allocator, long
> + * before this block exists, so memblk_nr_poison_inc() had nowhere to count
> + * them. Take them from the page flag instead.
> + */
> +static void memblk_nr_poison_init(struct memory_block *mem)
> +{
> + unsigned long pfn = section_nr_to_pfn(mem->start_section_nr);
> + unsigned long nr_pages = PAGES_PER_SECTION * sections_per_block;
> + unsigned long i, nr_poison = 0;
> +
> + /* A hotplugged block is created before its pages are online. */
> + if (mem->state != MEM_ONLINE)
> + return;
> +
> + if (!range_contains_poisoned_memory(PFN_PHYS(pfn),
> + nr_pages << PAGE_SHIFT))
> + return;
[Severity: Medium]
Does this check unconditionally return false for a fresh early MCE because
the MCE is not in the inherited EFI table?
If so, would this skip the manual walk, leaving the counter entirely
dependent on the concurrent memory_failure() increment that might be
dropped in the race window described in add_memory_block() above?
--
Sashiko AI review · https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260915-hwpoison-kho-v5-0-3bc7a57bd503@xxxxxxxxxx?part=7