Currently sta airtime is updated without any lock in case of host based airtime calculation. Which may result in accessing the invalid sta pointer in case of continuous station connect/disconnect. This patch fix the kernel null pointer dereference by updating the station airtime with proper RCU lock in case of host based airtime calculation. Proceeding with the analysis of "ARM Kernel Panic". The APSS crash happened due to OOPS on CPU 0. Crash Signature : Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000300 During the crash, PC points to "ieee80211_sta_register_airtime+0x1c/0x448 [mac80211]" LR points to "ath10k_txrx_tx_unref+0x17c/0x364 [ath10k_core]". The Backtrace obtained is as follows: [<bf880238>] (ieee80211_sta_register_airtime [mac80211]) from [<bf945a38>] (ath10k_txrx_tx_unref+0x17c/0x364 [ath10k_core]) [<bf945a38>] (ath10k_txrx_tx_unref [ath10k_core]) from [<bf9428e4>] (ath10k_htt_txrx_compl_task+0xa50/0xfc0 [ath10k_core]) [<bf9428e4>] (ath10k_htt_txrx_compl_task [ath10k_core]) from [<bf9b9bc8>] (ath10k_pci_napi_poll+0x50/0xf8 [ath10k_pci]) [<bf9b9bc8>] (ath10k_pci_napi_poll [ath10k_pci]) from [<c059e3b0>] (net_rx_action+0xac/0x160) [<c059e3b0>] (net_rx_action) from [<c02329a4>] (__do_softirq+0x104/0x294) [<c02329a4>] (__do_softirq) from [<c0232b64>] (run_ksoftirqd+0x30/0x90) [<c0232b64>] (run_ksoftirqd) from [<c024e358>] (smpboot_thread_fn+0x25c/0x274) [<c024e358>] (smpboot_thread_fn) from [<c02482fc>] (kthread+0xd8/0xec) Tested HW: QCA9888 Tested FW: 10.4-3.10-00047 Signed-off-by: Venkateswara Naralasetty <vnaralas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/txrx.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/txrx.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/txrx.c index 39abf8b..f46b908 100644 --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/txrx.c +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/txrx.c @@ -84,9 +84,11 @@ int ath10k_txrx_tx_unref(struct ath10k_htt *htt, wake_up(&htt->empty_tx_wq); spin_unlock_bh(&htt->tx_lock); + rcu_read_lock(); if (txq && txq->sta && skb_cb->airtime_est) ieee80211_sta_register_airtime(txq->sta, txq->tid, skb_cb->airtime_est, 0); + rcu_read_unlock(); if (ar->bus_param.dev_type != ATH10K_DEV_TYPE_HL) dma_unmap_single(dev, skb_cb->paddr, msdu->len, DMA_TO_DEVICE); -- 2.7.4