Message-ID: <e4f85a46420240093b69c761d9a7797b@codeaurora.org>
Date:   Thu, 22 Oct 2020 16:50:00 +0530
From:   Sai Prakash Ranjan <saiprakash.ranjan@...eaurora.org>
To:     Suzuki Poulose <suzuki.poulose@....com>
Cc:     Mathieu Poirier <mathieu.poirier@...aro.org>,
        mike.leach@...aro.org, coresight@...ts.linaro.org,
        swboyd@...omium.org, linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        denik@...gle.com, leo.yan@...aro.org, peterz@...radead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] coresight: tmc-etf: Fix NULL ptr dereference in
 tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf()

On 2020-10-22 16:44, Suzuki Poulose wrote:
> On 10/22/20 12:07 PM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>> On 2020-10-22 14:57, Suzuki Poulose wrote:
>>> On 10/22/20 9:02 AM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>> On 2020-10-21 15:38, Suzuki Poulose wrote:
>>>>> On 10/21/20 8:29 AM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>>>> On 2020-10-20 21:40, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2020-10-14 21:29, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2020-10-14 18:46, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 10/14/2020 10:36 AM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 2020-10-13 22:05, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 10/07/2020 02:00 PM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> There was a report of NULL pointer dereference in ETF enable
>>>>>>>>>>>> path for perf CS mode with PID monitoring. It is almost 100%
>>>>>>>>>>>> reproducible when the process to monitor is something very
>>>>>>>>>>>> active such as chrome and with ETF as the sink and not ETR.
>>>>>>>>>>>> Currently in a bid to find the pid, the owner is 
>>>>>>>>>>>> dereferenced
>>>>>>>>>>>> via task_pid_nr() call in tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf() and 
>>>>>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>>>>>> owner being NULL, we get a NULL pointer dereference.
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>>> Looking at the ETR and other places in the kernel, ETF and 
>>>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>>>> ETB are the only places trying to dereference the 
>>>>>>>>>>>> task(owner)
>>>>>>>>>>>> in tmc_enable_etf_sink_perf() which is also called from the
>>>>>>>>>>>> sched_in path as in the call trace. Owner(task) is NULL even
>>>>>>>>>>>> in the case of ETR in tmc_enable_etr_sink_perf(), but since 
>>>>>>>>>>>> we
>>>>>>>>>>>> cache the PID in alloc_buffer() callback and it is done as 
>>>>>>>>>>>> part
>>>>>>>>>>>> of etm_setup_aux() when allocating buffer for ETR sink, we 
>>>>>>>>>>>> never
>>>>>>>>>>>> dereference this NULL pointer and we are safe. So lets do 
>>>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The patch is necessary to fix some of the issues. But I feel 
>>>>>>>>>>> it is
>>>>>>>>>>> not complete. Why is it safe earlier and not later ? I 
>>>>>>>>>>> believe we are
>>>>>>>>>>> simply reducing the chances of hitting the issue, by doing 
>>>>>>>>>>> this earlier than
>>>>>>>>>>> later. I would say we better fix all instances to make sure 
>>>>>>>>>>> that the
>>>>>>>>>>> event->owner is valid. (e.g, I can see that the for kernel 
>>>>>>>>>>> events
>>>>>>>>>>> event->owner == -1 ?)
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> struct task_struct *tsk = READ_ONCE(event->owner);
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> if (!tsk || is_kernel_event(event))
>>>>>>>>>>>    /* skip ? */
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Looking at it some more, is_kernel_event() is not exposed
>>>>>>>>>> outside events core and probably for good reason. Why do
>>>>>>>>>> we need to check for this and not just tsk?
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Because the event->owner could be :
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>  = NULL
>>>>>>>>>  = -1UL  // kernel event
>>>>>>>>>  = valid.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Yes I understood that part, but here we were trying to
>>>>>>>> fix the NULL pointer dereference right and hence the
>>>>>>>> question as to why we need to check for kernel events?
>>>>>>>> I am no expert in perf but I don't see anywhere in the
>>>>>>>> kernel checking for is_kernel_event(), so I am a bit
>>>>>>>> skeptical if exporting that is actually right or not.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I have stress tested with the original patch many times
>>>>>>> now, i.e., without a check for event->owner and is_kernel_event()
>>>>>>> and didn't observe any crash. Plus on ETR where this was already
>>>>>>> done, no crashes were reported till date and with ETF, the issue
>>>>>>> was quickly reproducible, so I am fairly confident that this
>>>>>>> doesn't just delay the original issue but actually fixes
>>>>>>> it. I will run an overnight test again to confirm this.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I ran the overnight test which collected aroung 4G data(see 
>>>>>> below),
>>>>>> with the following small change to see if the two cases
>>>>>> (event->owner=NULL and is_kernel_event()) are triggered
>>>>>> with suggested changes and it didn't trigger at all.
>>>>>> Do we still need those additional checks?
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes. Please see perf_event_create_kernel_event(), which is
>>>>> an exported function allowing any kernel code (including modules)
>>>>> to use the PMU (just like the userspace perf tool would do).
>>>>> Just because your use case doesn't trigger this (because
>>>>> you don't run something that can trigger this) doesn't mean
>>>>> this can't be triggered.
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks for that pointer, I will add them in the next version.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> And instead of redefining TASK_TOMBSTONE in the driver, you
>>> may simply use IS_ERR_OR_NULL(tsk) to cover both NULL case
>>> and kernel event.
>>> 
>> 
>> Ugh sorry, sent out v2 exporting is_kernel_event() before seeing
>> this comment, I will resend.
> 
> Saw that. I would say, wait until someone complains about that. If
> people are Ok with exporting it, it is fine. I guess it will be useful.
> You could fall back to this approach if there is resistance.
> 

Sure, I will wait for some comments although I hurried
to tell them to ignore it :(

Thanks,
Sai

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