Re: [PATCH resend 4.9] hw_random: Don't use a stack buffer in add_early_randomness()

From: Matt Mullins
Date: Fri Feb 03 2017 - 23:43:23 EST


On Sat, Feb 04, 2017 at 11:47:38AM +0800, Yisheng Xie wrote:
> On 2016/10/18 1:06, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > hw_random carefully avoids using a stack buffer except in
> > add_early_randomness(). This causes a crash in virtio_rng if
> > CONFIG_VMAP_STACK=y.
> I try to understand this patch, but I do not know why it will cause
> a crash in virtio_rng with CONFIG_VMAP_STACK=y?
> Could you please give me more info. about it.

My original report was
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161016002151.GA18235@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The virtio ring APIs use scatterlists to keep track of the buffers, and
scatterlist requires addresses to be in the kernel direct-mapped address range.
This is not the case for vmalloc()ed addresses, such as the original on-stack
"bytes" array when VMAP_STACK=y.