While running transparent huge page tests [1] against 6.0.0-rc6-next-20220920 following crash is seen on IBM Power server. Kernel attempted to read user page (34) - exploit attempt? (uid: 0) BUG: Kernel NULL pointer dereference on read at 0x00000034 Faulting instruction address: 0xc0000000004d2744 Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Radix SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries Modules linked in: dm_mod(E) bonding(E) rfkill(E) tls(E) sunrpc(E) nd_pmem(E) nd_btt(E) dax_pmem(E) papr_scm(E) libnvdimm(E) pseries_rng(E) vmx_crypto(E) ext4(E) mbcache(E) jbd2(E) sd_mod(E) t10_pi(E) crc64_rocksoft(E) crc64(E) sg(E) ibmvscsi(E) scsi_transport_srp(E) ibmveth(E) fuse(E) CPU: 37 PID: 2219255 Comm: sysctl Tainted: G E 6.0.0-rc6-next-20220920 #1 NIP: c0000000004d2744 LR: c0000000004d2734 CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c0000012801bf660 TRAP: 0300 Tainted: G E (6.0.0-rc6-next-20220920) MSR: 8000000000009033 <SF,EE,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 24048222 XER: 20040000 CFAR: c0000000004b0eac DAR: 0000000000000034 DSISR: 40000000 IRQMASK: 0 GPR00: c0000000004d2734 c0000012801bf900 c000000002a92300 0000000000000000 GPR04: c000000002ac8ac0 c000000001209340 0000000000000005 c000001286714b80 GPR08: 0000000000000034 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR12: 0000000028048242 c00000167fff6b00 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR16: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR20: c0000012801bfae8 0000000000000001 0000000000000100 0000000000000001 GPR24: c0000012801bfae8 c000000002ac8ac0 0000000000000002 0000000000000005 GPR28: 0000000000000000 0000000000000001 0000000000000000 0000000000346cca NIP [c0000000004d2744] alloc_buddy_huge_page+0xd4/0x240 LR [c0000000004d2734] alloc_buddy_huge_page+0xc4/0x240 Call Trace: [c0000012801bf900] [c0000000004d2734] alloc_buddy_huge_page+0xc4/0x240 (unreliable) [c0000012801bf9b0] [c0000000004d46a4] alloc_fresh_huge_page.part.72+0x214/0x2a0 [c0000012801bfa40] [c0000000004d7f88] alloc_pool_huge_page+0x118/0x190 [c0000012801bfa90] [c0000000004d84dc] __nr_hugepages_store_common+0x4dc/0x610 [c0000012801bfb70] [c0000000004d88bc] hugetlb_sysctl_handler_common+0x13c/0x180 [c0000012801bfc10] [c0000000006380e0] proc_sys_call_handler+0x210/0x350 [c0000012801bfc90] [c000000000551c00] vfs_write+0x2e0/0x460 [c0000012801bfd50] [c000000000551f5c] ksys_write+0x7c/0x140 [c0000012801bfda0] [c000000000033f58] system_call_exception+0x188/0x3f0 [c0000012801bfe10] [c00000000000c53c] system_call_common+0xec/0x270 --- interrupt: c00 at 0x7fffa9520c34 NIP: 00007fffa9520c34 LR: 00000001024754bc CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c0000012801bfe80 TRAP: 0c00 Tainted: G E (6.0.0-rc6-next-20220920) MSR: 800000000280f033 <SF,VEC,VSX,EE,PR,FP,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 28002202 XER: 00000000 IRQMASK: 0 GPR00: 0000000000000004 00007fffccd76cd0 00007fffa9607300 0000000000000003 GPR04: 0000000138da6970 0000000000000006 fffffffffffffff6 0000000000000000 GPR08: 0000000138da6970 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR12: 0000000000000000 00007fffa9a40940 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR16: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR20: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR24: 0000000000000001 0000000000000010 0000000000000006 0000000138da8aa0 GPR28: 00007fffa95fc2c8 0000000138da8aa0 0000000000000006 0000000138da6930 NIP [00007fffa9520c34] 0x7fffa9520c34 LR [00000001024754bc] 0x1024754bc --- interrupt: c00 Instruction dump: 3b400002 3ba00001 3b800000 7f26cb78 7fc5f378 7f64db78 7fe3fb78 4bfde5b9 60000000 7c691b78 39030034 7c0004ac <7d404028> 7c0ae800 40c20010 7f80412d ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception Bisect points to following patch: commit f2f3c25dea3acfb17aecb7273541e7266dfc8842 hugetlb: freeze allocated pages before creating hugetlb pages Reverting the patch allows the test to run successfully. Thanks - Sachin [1] https://github.com/avocado-framework-tests/avocado-misc-tests/blob/master/memory/transparent_hugepages_defrag.py