linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH v2 next]module: Fix mod->mkobj.kobj potentially freed too early

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Date:	Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:21:55 +0930
From:	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>
To:	Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:	Li Zhong <zhong@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	linux-next list <linux-next@...r.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, rmk+kernel@....linux.org.uk
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2 next]module: Fix mod->mkobj.kobj potentially freed too early

Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> writes:
> On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 02:08:27PM +0930, Rusty Russell wrote:
>> Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> writes:
>> > On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 03:37:55PM +0800, Li Zhong wrote:
>> >> DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE helps to find the issue attached below.
>> > People are starting to hit these types of issues, and I'd like to take
>> > this one out of the picture.
>> >
>> > Rusty, any objection to me taking this through my driver-core tree,
>> > where this new config option shows up?
>> 
>> The original fix was better.
>> 
>> Moving the module_kobject out and giving it its own lifetime solves this
>> immediate issue, but it still means there's an accessible module_kobject
>> around referring to a module which doesn't exist any more.
>
> That's ok, it could happen before as well.  What's wrong with that?
>
>> Original copied below, feel free to take it.
>
> You are just sitting and sleeping until someone drops the last reference
> to the module.  What if userspace grabs a reference from sysfs?  That
> could never return, I don't think you want to stall that out.

In your scenario, what happens if userspace grabs a reference via sysfs?
It then tries to use module_kobj->mod which points into freed memory?

eg. show_modinfo_##field or show_refcnt.

Is there an owner field I'm missing somewhere which stops this from
happening?  Otherwise, we can't unload the module until it's done.

> I'd prefer not having 2 things determining the lifecycle of a single
> object, that's messy, and not needed at all.

Normally you'd grab a reference to the module via an owner pointer.
Doing that in kobject seems like overkill, so we're working around it
here...

Hope that clarifies,
Rusty.
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