Patch "timers: Use proper base migration in add_timer_on()" has been added to the 4.3-stable tree

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

timers: Use proper base migration in add_timer_on()

to the 4.3-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:
timers-use-proper-base-migration-in-add_timer_on.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.3 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <[email protected]> know about it.

From: Tejun Heo <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 12:15:33 -0500
Subject: timers: Use proper base migration in add_timer_on()

From: Tejun Heo <[email protected]>

commit 22b886dd1018093920c4250dee2a9a3cb7cff7b8 upstream.

Regardless of the previous CPU a timer was on, add_timer_on() currently simply sets timer->flags to the new CPU. As the caller must be seeing the timer as idle, this is locally fine, but the timer leaving the old base while unlocked can lead to race conditions as follows.

Let's say timer was on cpu 0.

cpu 0 cpu 1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
del_timer(timer) succeeds
del_timer(timer)
lock_timer_base(timer) locks cpu_0_base
add_timer_on(timer, 1)

    spin_lock(&cpu_1_base->lock)
    timer->flags set to cpu_1_base
    operates on @timer			  operates on @timer

This triggered with mod_delayed_work_on() which contains "if (del_timer()) add_timer_on()" sequence eventually leading to the following oops.

  BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at           (null)
  IP: [<ffffffff810ca6e9>] detach_if_pending+0x69/0x1a0
  ...
  Workqueue: wqthrash wqthrash_workfunc [wqthrash]
  task: ffff8800172ca680 ti: ffff8800172d0000 task.ti: ffff8800172d0000
  RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff810ca6e9>]  [<ffffffff810ca6e9>] detach_if_pending+0x69/0x1a0
  ...
  Call Trace:
   [<ffffffff810cb0b4>] del_timer+0x44/0x60
   [<ffffffff8106e836>] try_to_grab_pending+0xb6/0x160
   [<ffffffff8106e913>] mod_delayed_work_on+0x33/0x80
   [<ffffffffa0000081>] wqthrash_workfunc+0x61/0x90 [wqthrash]
   [<ffffffff8106dba8>] process_one_work+0x1e8/0x650
   [<ffffffff8106e05e>] worker_thread+0x4e/0x450
   [<ffffffff810746af>] kthread+0xef/0x110
   [<ffffffff8185980f>] ret_from_fork+0x3f/0x70

Fix it by updating add_timer_on() to perform proper migration as __mod_timer() does.

---
 kernel/time/timer.c |   22 +++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

@@ -970,13 +970,29 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(add_timer);
  */
 void add_timer_on(struct timer_list *timer, int cpu)
 {
-	struct tvec_base *base = per_cpu_ptr(&tvec_bases, cpu);
+	struct tvec_base *new_base = per_cpu_ptr(&tvec_bases, cpu);
+	struct tvec_base *base;
 	unsigned long flags;
 
 	timer_stats_timer_set_start_info(timer);
 	BUG_ON(timer_pending(timer) || !timer->function);
-	spin_lock_irqsave(&base->lock, flags);
-	timer->flags = (timer->flags & ~TIMER_BASEMASK) | cpu;
+
+	/*
+	 * If @timer was on a different CPU, it should be migrated with the
+	 * old base locked to prevent other operations proceeding with the
+	 * wrong base locked.  See lock_timer_base().
+	 */
+	base = lock_timer_base(timer, &flags);
+	if (base != new_base) {
+		timer->flags |= TIMER_MIGRATING;
+
+		spin_unlock(&base->lock);
+		base = new_base;
+		spin_lock(&base->lock);
+		WRITE_ONCE(timer->flags,
+			   (timer->flags & ~TIMER_BASEMASK) | cpu);
+	}
+
 	debug_activate(timer, timer->expires);
 	internal_add_timer(base, timer);
 	spin_unlock_irqrestore(&base->lock, flags);

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from [email protected] are

queue-4.3/timers-use-proper-base-migration-in-add_timer_on.patch