This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled perf: Fix a race condition in perf_remove_from_context() to the 3.16-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: perf-fix-a-race-condition-in-perf_remove_from_context.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.16 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 3577af70a2ce4853d58e57d832e687d739281479 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Cong Wang <cwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 15:27:20 -0700 Subject: perf: Fix a race condition in perf_remove_from_context() From: Cong Wang <cwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> commit 3577af70a2ce4853d58e57d832e687d739281479 upstream. We saw a kernel soft lockup in perf_remove_from_context(), it looks like the `perf` process, when exiting, could not go out of the retry loop. Meanwhile, the target process was forking a child. So either the target process should execute the smp function call to deactive the event (if it was running) or it should do a context switch which deactives the event. It seems we optimize out a context switch in perf_event_context_sched_out(), and what's more important, we still test an obsolete task pointer when retrying, so no one actually would deactive that event in this situation. Fix it directly by reloading the task pointer in perf_remove_from_context(). This should cure the above soft lockup. Signed-off-by: Cong Wang <cwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Cong Wang <xiyou.wangcong@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1409696840-843-1-git-send-email-xiyou.wangcong@xxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/events/core.c | 10 ++++++++++ 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+) --- a/kernel/events/core.c +++ b/kernel/events/core.c @@ -1523,6 +1523,11 @@ retry: */ if (ctx->is_active) { raw_spin_unlock_irq(&ctx->lock); + /* + * Reload the task pointer, it might have been changed by + * a concurrent perf_event_context_sched_out(). + */ + task = ctx->task; goto retry; } @@ -1966,6 +1971,11 @@ retry: */ if (ctx->is_active) { raw_spin_unlock_irq(&ctx->lock); + /* + * Reload the task pointer, it might have been changed by + * a concurrent perf_event_context_sched_out(). + */ + task = ctx->task; goto retry; } Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from cwang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.16/perf-fix-a-race-condition-in-perf_remove_from_context.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