linux-kernel - Re: [nfsd4] potentially hardware breaking regression in 4.14-rc and 4.13.11

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Date:   Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:47:10 +0000
From:   Alan Cox <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To:     Patrick McLean <chutzpah@...too.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org,
        stable@...r.kernel.org, regressions@...mhuis.info,
        torvalds@...ux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: [nfsd4] potentially hardware breaking regression in 4.14-rc and
 4.13.11

On Wed, 8 Nov 2017 16:43:17 -0800
Patrick McLean <chutzpah@...too.org> wrote:

> As of 4.13.11 (and also with 4.14-rc) we have an issue where when
> serving nfs4 sometimes we get the following BUG. When this bug happens,
> it usually also causes the motherboard to no longer POST until we
> externally re-flash the BIOS (using the BMC web interface). If a
> motherboard does not have an external way to flash the BIOS, this would
> brick the hardware.

If that is a production x86 system then you need to raise a large red
flag with the vendor because it should not even be possible to splat the
BIOS firmware on a modern PC by running even malicious OS code.

Not only that but if it has a flaw, and you bisect down to create a
reproducer then it's not going to take the bad guys very long to turn it
into an interesting toy to run if they ever exploit a box with that board.

Alan