This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled x86: stop playing stack games in profile_pc() to the 5.10-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: x86-stop-playing-stack-games-in-profile_pc.patch and it can be found in the queue-5.10 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. commit 5ef4e5e85eb1c8ef69342bf29e6e0d89e79ac204 Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri Jun 28 14:27:22 2024 -0700 x86: stop playing stack games in profile_pc() [ Upstream commit 093d9603b60093a9aaae942db56107f6432a5dca ] The 'profile_pc()' function is used for timer-based profiling, which isn't really all that relevant any more to begin with, but it also ends up making assumptions based on the stack layout that aren't necessarily valid. Basically, the code tries to account the time spent in spinlocks to the caller rather than the spinlock, and while I support that as a concept, it's not worth the code complexity or the KASAN warnings when no serious profiling is done using timers anyway these days. And the code really does depend on stack layout that is only true in the simplest of cases. We've lost the comment at some point (I think when the 32-bit and 64-bit code was unified), but it used to say: Assume the lock function has either no stack frame or a copy of eflags from PUSHF. which explains why it just blindly loads a word or two straight off the stack pointer and then takes a minimal look at the values to just check if they might be eflags or the return pc: Eflags always has bits 22 and up cleared unlike kernel addresses but that basic stack layout assumption assumes that there isn't any lock debugging etc going on that would complicate the code and cause a stack frame. It causes KASAN unhappiness reported for years by syzkaller [1] and others [2]. With no real practical reason for this any more, just remove the code. Just for historical interest, here's some background commits relating to this code from 2006: 0cb91a229364 ("i386: Account spinlocks to the caller during profiling for !FP kernels") 31679f38d886 ("Simplify profile_pc on x86-64") and a code unification from 2009: ef4512882dbe ("x86: time_32/64.c unify profile_pc") but the basics of this thing actually goes back to before the git tree. Link: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=84fe685c02cd112a2ac3 [1] Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAK55_s7Xyq=nh97=K=G1sxueOFrJDAvPOJAL4TPTCAYvmxO9_A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ [2] Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx> diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/time.c b/arch/x86/kernel/time.c index e42faa792c079..52e1f3f0b361c 100644 --- a/arch/x86/kernel/time.c +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/time.c @@ -27,25 +27,7 @@ unsigned long profile_pc(struct pt_regs *regs) { - unsigned long pc = instruction_pointer(regs); - - if (!user_mode(regs) && in_lock_functions(pc)) { -#ifdef CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER - return *(unsigned long *)(regs->bp + sizeof(long)); -#else - unsigned long *sp = (unsigned long *)regs->sp; - /* - * Return address is either directly at stack pointer - * or above a saved flags. Eflags has bits 22-31 zero, - * kernel addresses don't. - */ - if (sp[0] >> 22) - return sp[0]; - if (sp[1] >> 22) - return sp[1]; -#endif - } - return pc; + return instruction_pointer(regs); } EXPORT_SYMBOL(profile_pc);