[ 076/102] watchdog: Fix race condition in registration code

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Fri May 17 2013 - 17:46:18 EST


3.9-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.

------------------

From: Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

commit 60403f7a4d9368d187f79cba5e4672d01df37574 upstream.

A race condition exists when registering the first watchdog device.
Sequence of events:

- watchdog_register_device calls watchdog_dev_register
- watchdog_dev_register creates the watchdog misc device by calling
misc_register.
At that time, the matching character device (/dev/watchdog0) does not yet
exist, and old_wdd is not set either.
- Userspace gets an event and opens /dev/watchdog
- watchdog_open is called and sets wdd = old_wdd, which is still NULL,
and tries to dereference it. This causes the kernel to panic.

Seen with systemd trying to open /dev/watchdog immediately after
it was created.

Reported-by: Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <arekm@xxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <arekm@xxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

---
drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c | 3 ++-
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c
+++ b/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_dev.c
@@ -523,6 +523,7 @@ int watchdog_dev_register(struct watchdo
int err, devno;

if (watchdog->id == 0) {
+ old_wdd = watchdog;
watchdog_miscdev.parent = watchdog->parent;
err = misc_register(&watchdog_miscdev);
if (err != 0) {
@@ -531,9 +532,9 @@ int watchdog_dev_register(struct watchdo
if (err == -EBUSY)
pr_err("%s: a legacy watchdog module is probably present.\n",
watchdog->info->identity);
+ old_wdd = NULL;
return err;
}
- old_wdd = watchdog;
}

/* Fill in the data structures */


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