4.4-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: Ladi Prosek <lprosek@xxxxxxxxxx> commit fc8653228c8588a120f6b5dad6983b7b61ff669e upstream. When init_vqs runs, virtio_balloon.stats is either uninitialized or contains stale values. The host updates its state with garbage data because it has no way of knowing that this is just a marker buffer used for signaling. This patch updates the stats before pushing the initial buffer. Alternative fixes: * Push an empty buffer in init_vqs. Not easily done with the current virtio implementation and violates the spec "Driver MUST supply the same subset of statistics in all buffers submitted to the statsq". * Push a buffer with invalid tags in init_vqs. Violates the same spec clause, plus "invalid tag" is not really defined. Note: the spec says: When using the legacy interface, the device SHOULD ignore all values in the first buffer in the statsq supplied by the driver after device initialization. Note: Historically, drivers supplied an uninitialized buffer in the first buffer. Unfortunately QEMU does not seem to implement the recommendation even for the legacy interface. Signed-off-by: Ladi Prosek <lprosek@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) --- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c +++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c @@ -416,6 +416,8 @@ static int init_vqs(struct virtio_balloo * Prime this virtqueue with one buffer so the hypervisor can * use it to signal us later (it can't be broken yet!). */ + update_balloon_stats(vb); + sg_init_one(&sg, vb->stats, sizeof vb->stats); if (virtqueue_add_outbuf(vb->stats_vq, &sg, 1, vb, GFP_KERNEL) < 0)