From: Nikolay Aleksandrov <nikolay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:21:07 +0200 > I was contacted recently about this privately and this was my reply: > "Checking new_nbp() and del_nbp() it should not be possible to reach that code > with p->dev or p->br as NULL. The cap check code has always been there, I just > shuffled the rest of the function to obtain rtnl lock and kept it as close to > the original as possible, thus the checks remained. > In order to avoid future reports like this I'll send a cleanup once net-next > opens up. > > My reasoning of why it shouldn't be possible: > - On port add new_nbp() sets both p->dev and p->br before creating kobj/sysfs > > - On port del (trickier) del_nbp() calls kobject_del() before call_rcu() to destroy > the port which in turn calls sysfs_remove_dir() which uses kernfs_remove() which > deactivates (shouldn't be able to open new files) and calls kernfs_drain() to drain > current open/mmaped files in the respective dir before continuing, thus making it > impossible to open a bridge port sysfs file with p->dev and p->br equal to NULL. > " > > So I think it's safe to remove those checks altogether. It'd be nice to get a second > look over my reasoning as I might be missing something in sysfs/kernfs call path. I did a once over your analysis and I agree, the checks should be safe to remove.