Re: [PATCH v9 2/3] watchdog: add watchdog_cpumask sysctl to assist nohz

Ulrich Obergfell
2015-04-22T11:03:30Z

Chris,

in https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/4/17/616 you stated:

">> + alloc_cpumask_var(&watchdog_cpumask_for_smpboot, GFP_KERNEL);
>
> alloc_cpumask_var could fail?

Good catch; if I get a failure I'll just return early without trying to
start the watchdog, since clearly things are too memory-constrained
to enable that functionality anyway."

Let's assume that (in spite of the memory constraints) the kernel would still
be able to make progress and get to a point where the system will be usable.
In this corner case, the following code would leave a NULL pointer behind in
watchdog_cpumask and in watchdog_cpumask_bits which could subsequently lead
to a crash.

void __init lockup_detector_init(void)
{
set_sample_period();

+ if (!alloc_cpumask_var(&watchdog_cpumask, GFP_KERNEL)) {
+ pr_err("Failed to allocate cpumask for watchdog");
+ return;
+ }
+ watchdog_cpumask_bits = cpumask_bits(watchdog_cpumask);

For example, proc_watchdog_cpumask() and the change that your patch introduces
in watchdog_enable_all_cpus() are not protected against a possible NULL pointer.
I think the code needs to be made safer.

Regards,

Uli