Re: Debug: sleeping function called from invalid context

Matt Mackall
2003-08-18T21:26:50Z

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 02:07:29PM -0700, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 02:06:52 -0500 Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> wrote:
>
> | On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 12:30:53PM -0700, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> | > On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 18:32:47 +0100 Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com> wrote:
> | >
> | > | On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 10:18:56AM -0700, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> | > |
> | > | > Debug: sleeping function called from invalid context at include/asm/uaccess.h:473
> | > | > Call Trace:
> | > | > [<c0120d94>] __might_sleep+0x54/0x5b
> | > | > [<c010d001>] save_v86_state+0x71/0x1f0
> | > | > [<c010dbd5>] handle_vm86_fault+0xc5/0xa90
> | > | > [<c019cab8>] ext3_file_write+0x28/0xc0
> | > | > [<c011cd96>] __change_page_attr+0x26/0x220
> | > | > [<c010b310>] do_general_protection+0x0/0x90
> | > | > [<c010a69d>] error_code+0x2d/0x40
> | > | > [<c0109657>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
> | > |
> | > | That's one really wierd looking backtrace. What else was that
> | > | machine up to at the time ?
> | >
> | > Some parts of it are explainable (to me), some not.
> | > I don't know what caused a GP fault or why ext3 shows up.
> | >
> | > But I can follow from do_general_protection() to handle_vm86_fault()
> | > to [inline] return_to_32bit() to save_v86_state() to __might_sleep().
> | >
> | > And __might_sleep() is correct if change_page_attr() was called,
> | > since it takes a spinlock. I just can't connect quite all of the dots.
> |
> | Ok, there's some stack noise here with the ext3_file_write and
> | __change_page_attr.
> |
> | Here's what I've figured out so far. You probably have something like
> | X running with a driver that calls an image of its own 16-bit BIOS to
> | get something done (I think Matrox does this) via sys_vm86. One of the
> | arguments to sys_vm86 is a pointer to a vm86plus_struct in userspace
> | that gets stashed away in tsk->thread.vm86_info.
> |
> | When, for whatever reason, a fixup is needed in vm86 mode, we find
> | ourselves in handle_vm86_fault and save_v86_state copied various junk
> | out to this userspace struct we've kept a pointer to. Now as far as I
> | can tell, there's nothing guaranteeing this struct is pinned down or
> | in any way guaranteed to be around when the fault occurs. If the page
> | with the struct _does_ get swapped out, we can be in trouble when we
> | hit this fault.
> |
> | If this is actually a valid analysis, we should probably just pin the
> | page for the duration of vm86 as it's already bordering on magical.
> |
> | If there's some reason this whole thing is safe, let me know and I'll
> | try to get might_sleep to stop complaining about these.
> |
> | I suppose we could test it by hacking a program guaranteed to fault in
> | vm86 mode and hacking the syscall to force the page out before calling
> | do_sys_vm86.
>
> I had another occurrence of this yesterday. It doesn't seem to be
> an error condition AFAICT.

No, it's only a warning (which I recently added to the copy_* path)
that something is used in a suspicious context. The question is "is
the warning bogus or is there something that can actually go wrong
here?".

As far as I can tell, the answer is "yes, there's a good chance this
could blow up under load". We need two things to happen: the caller's
page containing the vm86plus_struct to get swapped out, and to take
any sort of fault (including using virtualized instructions) in vm86
mode. Result: you'll hit the double-fault handler and the system will
loop forever with interrupts disabled after spitting out a few printks
that you won't see because you're in X.

--
Matt Mackall : http://www.selenic.com : of or relating to the moon