[PATCH] perf/core: Fix refcount leak in attach_perf_ctx_data()

From: Namhyung Kim

Date: Mon May 04 2026 - 03:16:05 EST


The attach_perf_ctx_data() can race on global and !global cases. The
global case is protected by global_ctx_data_rwsem and shares a single
reference count using perf_ctx_data.global field.

But when it races with !global case, it may miss to set the global field
and result in a reference count leak.

CPU1 CPU2
----------------------------------------------------------------
attach_task_ctx_data(global=1) attach_task_ctx_data(global=0)
cd1 = alloc_perf_ctx_data() cd2 = alloc_perf_ctx_data()
try_cmpxchg() // ok
// task->perf_ctx_data = cd2
try_cmpxchg() // fail; old = cd2; global = 0
refcount_inc_not_zero() // cd2->refcount++;
free_perf_ctx_data() // cd1

Then later detach_global_ctx_data() will see the data but it's not
marked as global, so it won't call detach_task_ctx_data().

Assisted-by: Sashiko.dev:Gemini-3.1-pro
Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/events/core.c | 2 ++
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/kernel/events/core.c b/kernel/events/core.c
index 6d1f8bad7e1c5210..939436a168ba5ec2 100644
--- a/kernel/events/core.c
+++ b/kernel/events/core.c
@@ -5445,6 +5445,8 @@ attach_task_ctx_data(struct task_struct *task, struct kmem_cache *ctx_cache,
}

if (refcount_inc_not_zero(&old->refcount)) {
+ if (global)
+ old->global = true;
free_perf_ctx_data(cd); /* unused */
return 0;
}
--
2.53.0