[PATCH 6.12 148/567] MIPS: ftrace: Fix memory corruption when kernel is located beyond 32 bits

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-01-06T17:22:25Z

From: Gregory CLEMENT <gregory.clement@bootlin.com>

[ Upstream commit 36dac9a3dda1f2bae343191bc16b910c603cac25 ]

Since commit e424054000878 ("MIPS: Tracing: Reduce the overhead of
dynamic Function Tracer"), the macro UASM_i_LA_mostly has been used,
and this macro can generate more than 2 instructions. At the same
time, the code in ftrace assumes that no more than 2 instructions can
be generated, which is why it stores them in an int[2] array. However,
as previously noted, the macro UASM_i_LA_mostly (and now UASM_i_LA)
causes a buffer overflow when _mcount is beyond 32 bits. This leads to
corruption of the variables located in the __read_mostly section.

This corruption was observed because the variable
__cpu_primary_thread_mask was corrupted, causing a hang very early
during boot.

This fix prevents the corruption by avoiding the generation of
instructions if they could exceed 2 instructions in
length. Fortunately, insn_la_mcount is only used if the instrumented
code is located outside the kernel code section, so dynamic ftrace can
still be used, albeit in a more limited scope. This is still
preferable to corrupting memory and/or crashing the kernel.

Signed-off-by: Gregory CLEMENT <gregory.clement@bootlin.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
arch/mips/kernel/ftrace.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++----
1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/ftrace.c b/arch/mips/kernel/ftrace.c
index f39e85fd58fa..b15615b28569 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/ftrace.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/ftrace.c
@@ -54,10 +54,20 @@ static inline void ftrace_dyn_arch_init_insns(void)
u32 *buf;
unsigned int v1;

- /* la v1, _mcount */
- v1 = 3;
- buf = (u32 *)&insn_la_mcount[0];
- UASM_i_LA(&buf, v1, MCOUNT_ADDR);
+ /* If we are not in compat space, the number of generated
+ * instructions will exceed the maximum expected limit of 2.
+ * To prevent buffer overflow, we avoid generating them.
+ * insn_la_mcount will not be used later in ftrace_make_call.
+ */
+ if (uasm_in_compat_space_p(MCOUNT_ADDR)) {
+ /* la v1, _mcount */
+ v1 = 3;
+ buf = (u32 *)&insn_la_mcount[0];
+ UASM_i_LA(&buf, v1, MCOUNT_ADDR);
+ } else {
+ pr_warn("ftrace: mcount address beyond 32 bits is not supported (%lX)\n",
+ MCOUNT_ADDR);
+ }

/* jal (ftrace_caller + 8), jump over the first two instruction */
buf = (u32 *)&insn_jal_ftrace_caller;
@@ -189,6 +199,13 @@ int ftrace_make_call(struct dyn_ftrace *rec, unsigned long addr)
unsigned int new;
unsigned long ip = rec->ip;

+ /* When the code to patch does not belong to the kernel code
+ * space, we must use insn_la_mcount. However, if MCOUNT_ADDR
+ * is not in compat space, insn_la_mcount is not usable.
+ */
+ if (!core_kernel_text(ip) && !uasm_in_compat_space_p(MCOUNT_ADDR))
+ return -EFAULT;
+
new = core_kernel_text(ip) ? insn_jal_ftrace_caller : insn_la_mcount[0];

#ifdef CONFIG_64BIT
--
2.51.0