Re: [PATCH] fork: fix oops after fork failure

From: Michal Hocko
Date: Thu Aug 23 2012 - 10:33:19 EST


On Thu 23-08-12 17:08:46, Glauber Costa wrote:
> When we want to duplicate a new process, dup_task_struct() will undergo
> a series of allocations. If alloc_thread_info_node() fails, we call
> free_task_struct() and return.
>
> This seems right, but it is not. free_task_struct() will not only free
> the task struct from the kmem_cache, but will also call
> arch_release_task_struct(). The problem is that this function is
> supposed to undo whatever arch-specific work done by
> arch_dup_task_struct(), that is not yet called at this point. The
> particular problem I ran accross was that in x86, we will arrive at
> fpu_free() without having ever allocated it.
>
> This code is very ancient, and according to git, it is there since the
> pre-git era. But forks don't fail that often, so that made it well
> hidden.
>
> Signed-off-by: Glauber Costa <glommer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reported-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/fork.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
> index 152d023..b397435 100644
> --- a/kernel/fork.c
> +++ b/kernel/fork.c
> @@ -299,7 +299,7 @@ static struct task_struct *dup_task_struct(struct task_struct *orig)
>
> ti = alloc_thread_info_node(tsk, node);
> if (!ti) {
> - free_task_struct(tsk);
> + kmem_cache_free(task_struct_cachep, tsk);

What about ia64 (or !CONFIG_ARCH_THREAD_INFO_ALLOCATOR in general) which
doesn't allocate thread_info at all?

> return NULL;
> }
>
> --
> 1.7.11.4
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/