This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled futex: Move futex_init() to core_initcall to the 4.4-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: futex-move-futex_init-to-core_initcall.patch and it can be found in the queue-4.4 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 25f71d1c3e98ef0e52371746220d66458eac75bc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Yang Yang <yang.yang29@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:17:55 +0800 Subject: futex: Move futex_init() to core_initcall From: Yang Yang <yang.yang29@xxxxxxxxxx> commit 25f71d1c3e98ef0e52371746220d66458eac75bc upstream. The UEVENT user mode helper is enabled before the initcalls are executed and is available when the root filesystem has been mounted. The user mode helper is triggered by device init calls and the executable might use the futex syscall. futex_init() is marked __initcall which maps to device_initcall, but there is no guarantee that futex_init() is invoked _before_ the first device init call which triggers the UEVENT user mode helper. If the user mode helper uses the futex syscall before futex_init() then the syscall crashes with a NULL pointer dereference because the futex subsystem has not been initialized yet. Move futex_init() to core_initcall so futexes are initialized before the root filesystem is mounted and the usermode helper becomes available. [ tglx: Rewrote changelog ] Signed-off-by: Yang Yang <yang.yang29@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: jiang.biao2@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: jiang.zhengxiong@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: zhong.weidong@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: deng.huali@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1483085875-6130-1-git-send-email-yang.yang29@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/futex.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/kernel/futex.c +++ b/kernel/futex.c @@ -3199,4 +3199,4 @@ static int __init futex_init(void) return 0; } -__initcall(futex_init); +core_initcall(futex_init); Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from yang.yang29@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-4.4/futex-move-futex_init-to-core_initcall.patch