The current codebase makes use of one-element arrays in the following form: struct something { int length; u8 data[1]; }; struct something *instance; instance = kmalloc(sizeof(*instance) + size, GFP_KERNEL); instance->length = size; memcpy(instance->data, source, size); but the preferred mechanism to declare variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2], introduced in C99: struct foo { int stuff; struct boo array[]; }; By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on. So, replace the one-element array with a flexible-array member. Also, make use of the new struct_size() helper to properly calculate the total size needed to allocate dynamic memory for struct uv_rtc_timer_head. Notice that, due to the use of a one-element array, space for an extra struct cpu: struct { int lcpu; /* systemwide logical cpu number */ u64 expires; /* next timer expiration for this cpu */ } cpu[1] was being allocated at the moment of applying the sizeof operator to struct uv_rtc_timer_head in the call to kmalloc_node() at line 159: 159 head = kmalloc_node(sizeof(struct uv_rtc_timer_head) + 160 (uv_blade_nr_possible_cpus(bid) * 161 2 * sizeof(u64)), 162 GFP_KERNEL, nid); but that extra cpu[] was never actually being accessed due to the following piece of code at line 168: 168 head->ncpus = uv_blade_nr_possible_cpus(bid); and the piece of code at line 187: 187 for (c = 0; c < head->ncpus; c++) { 188 u64 exp = head->cpu[c].expires; 189 if (exp < lowest) { 190 bcpu = c; 191 lowest = exp; 192 } 193 } so heap space was being wasted. Another thing important to notice is that through the use of the struct_size() helper, code at line 161: 161 2 * sizeof(u64)), is changed to now be the actual size of struct cpu; see sizeof(*(p)->member) at include/linux/overflow.h:314: 314 #define struct_size(p, member, n) \ 315 __ab_c_size(n, \ 316 sizeof(*(p)->member) + __must_be_array((p)->member),\ 317 sizeof(*(p))) As a side note, the original developer could have implemented code at line 161: 2 * sizeof(64) as follows: sizeof(*head->cpu) This issue has been out there since 2009. This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle and fixed _manually_. [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html [2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21 [3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour") Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavoars@xxxxxxxxxx> --- arch/x86/platform/uv/uv_time.c | 7 +++---- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/arch/x86/platform/uv/uv_time.c b/arch/x86/platform/uv/uv_time.c index 7af31b245636..993a8ae6fdfb 100644 --- a/arch/x86/platform/uv/uv_time.c +++ b/arch/x86/platform/uv/uv_time.c @@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ struct uv_rtc_timer_head { struct { int lcpu; /* systemwide logical cpu number */ u64 expires; /* next timer expiration for this cpu */ - } cpu[1]; + } cpu[]; }; /* @@ -156,9 +156,8 @@ static __init int uv_rtc_allocate_timers(void) struct uv_rtc_timer_head *head = blade_info[bid]; if (!head) { - head = kmalloc_node(sizeof(struct uv_rtc_timer_head) + - (uv_blade_nr_possible_cpus(bid) * - 2 * sizeof(u64)), + head = kmalloc_node(struct_size(head, cpu, + uv_blade_nr_possible_cpus(bid)), GFP_KERNEL, nid); if (!head) { uv_rtc_deallocate_timers(); -- 2.26.2