From: "Steven Rostedt (Red Hat)" If tracing contains data and the trace_pipe file is read with sendfile(), then it can trigger a NULL pointer dereference and various BUG_ON within the VM code. There's a patch to fix this in the splice_to_pipe() code, but it's also a good idea to not let that happen from trace_pipe either. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1457641146-9068-1-git-send-email-rabin@rab.in Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # 2.6.30+ Reported-by: Rabin Vincent Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt --- kernel/trace/trace.c | 5 ++++- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace.c b/kernel/trace/trace.c index 0ae46048f724..cb2b708e4ea7 100644 --- a/kernel/trace/trace.c +++ b/kernel/trace/trace.c @@ -4954,7 +4954,10 @@ static ssize_t tracing_splice_read_pipe(struct file *filp, spd.nr_pages = i; - ret = splice_to_pipe(pipe, &spd); + if (i) + ret = splice_to_pipe(pipe, &spd); + else + ret = 0; out: splice_shrink_spd(&spd); return ret; -- 2.7.0