3.16.76-rc1 review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: Jean-Philippe Brucker <jean-philippe.brucker@xxxxxxx> commit 543bdb2d825fe2400d6e951f1786d92139a16931 upstream. Make mmu_notifier_register() safer by issuing a memory barrier before registering a new notifier. This fixes a theoretical bug on weakly ordered CPUs. For example, take this simplified use of notifiers by a driver: my_struct->mn.ops = &my_ops; /* (1) */ mmu_notifier_register(&my_struct->mn, mm) ... hlist_add_head(&mn->hlist, &mm->mmu_notifiers); /* (2) */ ... Once mmu_notifier_register() releases the mm locks, another thread can invalidate a range: mmu_notifier_invalidate_range() ... hlist_for_each_entry_rcu(mn, &mm->mmu_notifiers, hlist) { if (mn->ops->invalidate_range) The read side relies on the data dependency between mn and ops to ensure that the pointer is properly initialized. But the write side doesn't have any dependency between (1) and (2), so they could be reordered and the readers could dereference an invalid mn->ops. mmu_notifier_register() does take all the mm locks before adding to the hlist, but those have acquire semantics which isn't sufficient. By calling hlist_add_head_rcu() instead of hlist_add_head() we update the hlist using a store-release, ensuring that readers see prior initialization of my_struct. This situation is better illustated by litmus test MP+onceassign+derefonce. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190502133532.24981-1-jean-philippe.brucker@xxxxxxx Fixes: cddb8a5c14aa ("mmu-notifiers: core") Signed-off-by: Jean-Philippe Brucker <jean-philippe.brucker@xxxxxxx> Cc: Jérôme Glisse <jglisse@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/mmu_notifier.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/mm/mmu_notifier.c +++ b/mm/mmu_notifier.c @@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ static int do_mmu_notifier_register(stru * thanks to mm_take_all_locks(). */ spin_lock(&mm->mmu_notifier_mm->lock); - hlist_add_head(&mn->hlist, &mm->mmu_notifier_mm->list); + hlist_add_head_rcu(&mn->hlist, &mm->mmu_notifier_mm->list); spin_unlock(&mm->mmu_notifier_mm->lock); mm_drop_all_locks(mm);