[PATCH net v3] net: gro_cells: prevent enabling threaded NAPI on gro_cells

[PATCH net v3] net: gro_cells: prevent enabling threaded NAPI on gro_cells

[Naman Gulati]

gro_cells allocates a per-CPU struct gro_cell with per-CPU queues
(cell->napi_skbs), per-CPU local_lock_t (cell->bh_lock), and per-CPU
napi_struct (cell->napi). On !CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT, local_lock_t only
provides lockdep annotation (and is a complete no-op when
CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC is disabled), relying on per-CPU locality and
disabled BH context for mutual exclusion; it does not provide cross-CPU
synchronization.

When threaded NAPI is enabled on a device backed by gro_cells (e.g.
gre0, vxlan, geneve) via sysfs, unbound kernel threads are created for
each per-CPU NAPI. When gro_cells_receive() on CPU A enqueues a packet
to cell_A and calls napi_schedule(&cell_A->napi) while holding
cell_A->bh_lock, the woken kthread can run concurrently on remote CPU B.

When CPU B runs gro_cell_poll(&cell_A->napi) and calls
__local_lock_nested_bh(&cell_A->bh_lock), lockdep detects that the lock
is already held by CPU A's task and triggers a warning:

  WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 377 at net/core/gro_cells.c:66 gro_cell_poll
  DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(l->owner)
  CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 377 Comm: napi/gre0-0 Not tainted 7.3.0-rc2
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   __local_lock_nested_bh include/linux/local_lock_internal.h:92
   gro_cell_poll+0x5aa/0x6c0 net/core/gro_cells.c:66
   napi_threaded_poll+0x39b/0x600 net/core/dev.c:7048
   kthread+0x71e/0x870 kernel/kthread.c:464
   ret_from_fork+0x5d/0x90 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:167
   ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:264
   </TASK>

On !CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT kernels without lockdep, concurrent execution of
__skb_queue_tail() on CPU A and __skb_dequeue() on CPU B without
cross-CPU locks leads to silent queue corruption.

Virtual per-CPU NAPIs cannot support unbound threaded NAPI. While
gro_cells also sets NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL (which skips napi_hash_add()
and prevents configuring them via Netlink), NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL
cannot be used to reject threaded NAPI in sysfs because drivers such as
WireGuard set NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL on per-peer NAPIs while running
them in threaded mode by default.

Introduce NAPI_STATE_PERCPU to mark per-CPU NAPIs that cannot run in
unbound threaded mode. Set NAPI_STATE_PERCPU in gro_cells_init(), and
fail early with -EOPNOTSUPP in modify_napi_threaded() and
netdev_nl_napi_set_config() when trying to enable threaded NAPI on
NAPI_STATE_PERCPU NAPIs, while still allowing disabling (writing 0) as a
no-op.

Fixes: 25718fdcbdd2 ("net: gro_cells: Use nested-BH locking for gro_cell")
Fixes: 29863d41bb6e ("net: implement threaded-able napi poll loop support")
Reported-by: syzbot+f0661448aa9511ce744a@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/6aad6d7b.0c43d342.320d00.0001.GAE@google.com
Signed-off-by: Naman Gulati <namangulati@google.com>

---
v3:
  - Introduce NAPI_STATE_PERCPU instead of checking
    NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL, which broke sysfs threaded control on
    WireGuard devices (Jakub, Sashiko).
  - Only reject enabling threaded mode (val == 1 / threaded != 0) so
    writing 0 continues to succeed as a no-op (Sashiko).
  - v2: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20260929010058.4063305-1-namangulati@google.com/
v2:
  - Check NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL in modify_napi_threaded() instead of
    adding NAPI_STATE_NO_THREADED (Jakub).
  - v1: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260918173413.3222413-1-namangulati@google.com/
---
 include/linux/netdevice.h | 2 ++
 net/core/gro_cells.c      | 1 +
 net/core/net-sysfs.c      | 8 ++++++++
 net/core/netdev-genl.c    | 6 ++++++
 4 files changed, 17 insertions(+)

diff --git a/include/linux/netdevice.h b/include/linux/netdevice.h
index 87cafc932e9e..eeba45b6a5be 100644
--- a/include/linux/netdevice.h
+++ b/include/linux/netdevice.h
@@ -433,6 +433,7 @@ enum {
 	NAPI_STATE_SCHED_THREADED,	/* Napi is currently scheduled in threaded mode */
 	NAPI_STATE_HAS_NOTIFIER,	/* Napi has an IRQ notifier */
 	NAPI_STATE_THREADED_BUSY_POLL,	/* The threaded NAPI poller will busy poll */
+	NAPI_STATE_PERCPU,		/* NAPI handler is run per-CPU - incompatible with threaded mode */
 };
 
 enum {
@@ -448,6 +449,7 @@ enum {
 	NAPIF_STATE_SCHED_THREADED	= BIT(NAPI_STATE_SCHED_THREADED),
 	NAPIF_STATE_HAS_NOTIFIER	= BIT(NAPI_STATE_HAS_NOTIFIER),
 	NAPIF_STATE_THREADED_BUSY_POLL	= BIT(NAPI_STATE_THREADED_BUSY_POLL),
+	NAPIF_STATE_PERCPU		= BIT(NAPI_STATE_PERCPU),
 };
 
 enum gro_result {
diff --git a/net/core/gro_cells.c b/net/core/gro_cells.c
index d8c0a2867120..a321cc005607 100644
--- a/net/core/gro_cells.c
+++ b/net/core/gro_cells.c
@@ -92,6 +92,7 @@ int gro_cells_init(struct gro_cells *gcells, struct net_device *dev)
 		local_lock_init(&cell->bh_lock);
 
 		set_bit(NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL, &cell->napi.state);
+		set_bit(NAPI_STATE_PERCPU, &cell->napi.state);
 
 		netif_napi_add(dev, &cell->napi, gro_cell_poll);
 		napi_enable(&cell->napi);
diff --git a/net/core/net-sysfs.c b/net/core/net-sysfs.c
index 352173df7578..9876616638cd 100644
--- a/net/core/net-sysfs.c
+++ b/net/core/net-sysfs.c
@@ -743,6 +743,7 @@ static ssize_t threaded_show(struct device *dev,
 
 static int modify_napi_threaded(struct net_device *dev, unsigned long val)
 {
+	struct napi_struct *napi;
 	int ret;
 
 	if (list_empty(&dev->napi_list))
@@ -751,6 +752,13 @@ static int modify_napi_threaded(struct net_device *dev, unsigned long val)
 	if (val != 0 && val != 1)
 		return -EOPNOTSUPP;
 
+	if (val) {
+		list_for_each_entry(napi, &dev->napi_list, dev_list) {
+			if (test_bit(NAPI_STATE_PERCPU, &napi->state))
+				return -EOPNOTSUPP;
+		}
+	}
+
 	ret = netif_set_threaded(dev, val);
 
 	return ret;
diff --git a/net/core/netdev-genl.c b/net/core/netdev-genl.c
index cb18db681640..2e54809fa61a 100644
--- a/net/core/netdev-genl.c
+++ b/net/core/netdev-genl.c
@@ -335,6 +335,12 @@ netdev_nl_napi_set_config(struct napi_struct *napi, struct genl_info *info)
 		int ret;
 
 		threaded = nla_get_uint(info->attrs[NETDEV_A_NAPI_THREADED]);
+		if (threaded && test_bit(NAPI_STATE_PERCPU, &napi->state)) {
+			NL_SET_BAD_ATTR(info->extack,
+					info->attrs[NETDEV_A_NAPI_THREADED]);
+			return -EOPNOTSUPP;
+		}
+
 		ret = napi_set_threaded(napi, threaded);
 		if (ret)
 			return ret;
-- 
2.56.0.rc1.315.gc6ed9934b7-goog

Re: [PATCH net v3] net: gro_cells: prevent enabling threaded NAPI on gro_cells

[Björn Töpel]

Naman Gulati <namangulati@google.com> writes:

> gro_cells allocates a per-CPU struct gro_cell with per-CPU queues
> (cell->napi_skbs), per-CPU local_lock_t (cell->bh_lock), and per-CPU
> napi_struct (cell->napi). On !CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT, local_lock_t only
> provides lockdep annotation (and is a complete no-op when
> CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC is disabled), relying on per-CPU locality and
> disabled BH context for mutual exclusion; it does not provide cross-CPU
> synchronization.
>
> When threaded NAPI is enabled on a device backed by gro_cells (e.g.
> gre0, vxlan, geneve) via sysfs, unbound kernel threads are created for
> each per-CPU NAPI. When gro_cells_receive() on CPU A enqueues a packet
> to cell_A and calls napi_schedule(&cell_A->napi) while holding
> cell_A->bh_lock, the woken kthread can run concurrently on remote CPU B.
>
> When CPU B runs gro_cell_poll(&cell_A->napi) and calls
> __local_lock_nested_bh(&cell_A->bh_lock), lockdep detects that the lock
> is already held by CPU A's task and triggers a warning:
>
>   WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 377 at net/core/gro_cells.c:66 gro_cell_poll
>   DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(l->owner)
>   CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 377 Comm: napi/gre0-0 Not tainted 7.3.0-rc2
>   Call Trace:
>    <TASK>
>    __local_lock_nested_bh include/linux/local_lock_internal.h:92
>    gro_cell_poll+0x5aa/0x6c0 net/core/gro_cells.c:66
>    napi_threaded_poll+0x39b/0x600 net/core/dev.c:7048
>    kthread+0x71e/0x870 kernel/kthread.c:464
>    ret_from_fork+0x5d/0x90 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:167
>    ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:264
>    </TASK>
>
> On !CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT kernels without lockdep, concurrent execution of
> __skb_queue_tail() on CPU A and __skb_dequeue() on CPU B without
> cross-CPU locks leads to silent queue corruption.
>
> Virtual per-CPU NAPIs cannot support unbound threaded NAPI. While
> gro_cells also sets NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL (which skips napi_hash_add()
> and prevents configuring them via Netlink), NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL
> cannot be used to reject threaded NAPI in sysfs because drivers such as
> WireGuard set NAPI_STATE_NO_BUSY_POLL on per-peer NAPIs while running
> them in threaded mode by default.
>
> Introduce NAPI_STATE_PERCPU to mark per-CPU NAPIs that cannot run in
> unbound threaded mode. Set NAPI_STATE_PERCPU in gro_cells_init(), and
> fail early with -EOPNOTSUPP in modify_napi_threaded() and
> netdev_nl_napi_set_config() when trying to enable threaded NAPI on
> NAPI_STATE_PERCPU NAPIs, while still allowing disabling (writing 0) as a
> no-op.
>
> Fixes: 25718fdcbdd2 ("net: gro_cells: Use nested-BH locking for gro_cell")
> Fixes: 29863d41bb6e ("net: implement threaded-able napi poll loop support")
> Reported-by: syzbot+f0661448aa9511ce744a@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/6aad6d7b.0c43d342.320d00.0001.GAE@google.com
> Signed-off-by: Naman Gulati <namangulati@google.com>

Reviewed-by: Björn Töpel <bjorn@kernel.org>

Re: [PATCH net v3] net: gro_cells: prevent enabling threaded NAPI on gro_cells

[patchwork-bot+netdevbpf]

Hello:

This patch was applied to netdev/net-next.git (main)
by Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>:

On Tue,  6 Oct 2026 23:51:13 +0000 you wrote:
> gro_cells allocates a per-CPU struct gro_cell with per-CPU queues
> (cell->napi_skbs), per-CPU local_lock_t (cell->bh_lock), and per-CPU
> napi_struct (cell->napi). On !CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT, local_lock_t only
> provides lockdep annotation (and is a complete no-op when
> CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC is disabled), relying on per-CPU locality and
> disabled BH context for mutual exclusion; it does not provide cross-CPU
> synchronization.
> 
> [...]

Here is the summary with links:
  - [net,v3] net: gro_cells: prevent enabling threaded NAPI on gro_cells
    https://git.kernel.org/netdev/net-next/c/4e3b56eb2ed8

You are awesome, thank you!
-- 
Deet-doot-dot, I am a bot.
https://korg.docs.kernel.org/patchwork/pwbot.html