This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled watchdog: Fix race condition in registration code to the 3.9-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: watchdog-fix-race-condition-in-registration-code.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.9 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 60403f7a4d9368d187f79cba5e4672d01df37574 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 21:22:43 -0700 Subject: watchdog: Fix race condition in registration code From: Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx> commit 60403f7a4d9368d187f79cba5e4672d01df37574 upstream. A race condition exists when registering the first watchdog device. Sequence of events: - watchdog_register_device calls watchdog_dev_register - watchdog_dev_register creates the watchdog misc device by calling misc_register. At that time, the matching character device (/dev/watchdog0) does not yet exist, and old_wdd is not set either. - Userspace gets an event and opens /dev/watchdog - watchdog_open is called and sets wdd = old_wdd, which is still NULL, and tries to dereference it. This causes the kernel to panic. Seen with systemd trying to open /dev/watchdog immediately after it was created. Reported-by: Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <arekm@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Tested-by: Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <arekm@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c +++ b/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c @@ -523,6 +523,7 @@ int watchdog_dev_register(struct watchdo int err, devno; if (watchdog->id == 0) { + old_wdd = watchdog; watchdog_miscdev.parent = watchdog->parent; err = misc_register(&watchdog_miscdev); if (err != 0) { @@ -531,9 +532,9 @@ int watchdog_dev_register(struct watchdo if (err == -EBUSY) pr_err("%s: a legacy watchdog module is probably present.\n", watchdog->info->identity); + old_wdd = NULL; return err; } - old_wdd = watchdog; } /* Fill in the data structures */ Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.9/watchdog-fix-race-condition-in-registration-code.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html