[PATCH v2 2/2] tty: Fix race against tty_open() in tty_register_device_attr()

Max Staudt
2025-05-28T13:29:00Z

Since the chardev is now created before the class device is registered,
an attempt to tty_[k]open() the chardev between these two steps will
lead to tty->dev being assigned NULL by alloc_tty_struct().

alloc_tty_struct() is called via tty_init_dev() when the tty is firstly
opened, and is entered with tty_mutex held, so let's lock the critical
section in tty_register_device_attr() with the same global mutex.
This guarantees that tty->dev can be assigned a sane value.

Fixes: 6a7e6f78c235 ("tty: close race between device register and open")
Signed-off-by: Max Staudt <max@enpas.org>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
---
drivers/tty/tty_io.c | 9 ++++++++-
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/tty/tty_io.c b/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
index e922b84524d2..94768509e2d2 100644
--- a/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
+++ b/drivers/tty/tty_io.c
@@ -3258,6 +3258,8 @@ struct device *tty_register_device_attr(struct tty_driver *driver,
else
tty_line_name(driver, index, name);

+ mutex_lock(&tty_mutex);
+
if (!(driver->flags & TTY_DRIVER_DYNAMIC_ALLOC)) {
/*
* Free any saved termios data so that the termios state is
@@ -3271,7 +3273,7 @@ struct device *tty_register_device_attr(struct tty_driver *driver,

retval = tty_cdev_add(driver, devt, index, 1);
if (retval)
- return ERR_PTR(retval);
+ goto err_unlock;

cdev_added = true;
}
@@ -3294,6 +3296,8 @@ struct device *tty_register_device_attr(struct tty_driver *driver,
if (retval)
goto err_put;

+ mutex_unlock(&tty_mutex);
+
return dev;

err_put:
@@ -3309,6 +3313,9 @@ struct device *tty_register_device_attr(struct tty_driver *driver,
driver->cdevs[index] = NULL;
}

+err_unlock:
+ mutex_unlock(&tty_mutex);
+
return ERR_PTR(retval);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(tty_register_device_attr);
--
2.39.5