This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled Correct the race condition in aarch64_insn_patch_text_sync() to the 3.17-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: correct-the-race-condition-in-aarch64_insn_patch_text_sync.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.17 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 899d5933b2dd2720f2b20b01eaa07871aa6ad096 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: William Cohen <wcohen@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 09:41:27 -0500 Subject: Correct the race condition in aarch64_insn_patch_text_sync() From: William Cohen <wcohen@xxxxxxxxxx> commit 899d5933b2dd2720f2b20b01eaa07871aa6ad096 upstream. When experimenting with patches to provide kprobes support for aarch64 smp machines would hang when inserting breakpoints into kernel code. The hangs were caused by a race condition in the code called by aarch64_insn_patch_text_sync(). The first processor in the aarch64_insn_patch_text_cb() function would patch the code while other processors were still entering the function and incrementing the cpu_count field. This resulted in some processors never observing the exit condition and exiting the function. Thus, processors in the system hung. The first processor to enter the patching function performs the patching and signals that the patching is complete with an increment of the cpu_count field. When all the processors have incremented the cpu_count field the cpu_count will be num_cpus_online()+1 and they will return to normal execution. Fixes: ae16480785de arm64: introduce interfaces to hotpatch kernel and module code Signed-off-by: William Cohen <wcohen@xxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@xxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- arch/arm64/kernel/insn.c | 5 +++-- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) --- a/arch/arm64/kernel/insn.c +++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/insn.c @@ -156,9 +156,10 @@ static int __kprobes aarch64_insn_patch_ * which ends with "dsb; isb" pair guaranteeing global * visibility. */ - atomic_set(&pp->cpu_count, -1); + /* Notify other processors with an additional increment. */ + atomic_inc(&pp->cpu_count); } else { - while (atomic_read(&pp->cpu_count) != -1) + while (atomic_read(&pp->cpu_count) <= num_online_cpus()) cpu_relax(); isb(); } Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from wcohen@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.17/correct-the-race-condition-in-aarch64_insn_patch_text_sync.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