linux-kernel - [PATCH] slab: Avoid race on slab->obj_exts in alloc_slab_obj

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Message-Id: <20251017045749.3060696-1-hao.ge@linux.dev>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2025 12:57:49 +0800
From: Hao Ge <hao.ge@...ux.dev>
To: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Christoph Lameter <cl@...two.org>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@...ux.dev>,
	Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@...cle.com>,
	Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>
Cc: Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@...ux.dev>,
	linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Hao Ge <gehao@...inos.cn>
Subject: [PATCH] slab: Avoid race on slab->obj_exts in alloc_slab_obj_exts

From: Hao Ge <gehao@...inos.cn>

In the alloc_slab_obj_exts function, there is a race condition
between the successful allocation of slab->obj_exts and its
setting to OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL due to allocation failure.

When two threads are both allocating objects from the same slab,
they both end up entering the alloc_slab_obj_exts function because
the slab has no obj_exts (allocated yet).

And One call succeeds in allocation, but the racing one overwrites
our obj_ext with OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL. The threads that successfully
allocated will have prepare_slab_obj_exts_hook() return
slab_obj_exts(slab) + obj_to_index(s, slab, p), where slab_obj_exts(slab)
already sees OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL and thus it returns an offset based
on the zero address.

And then it will call alloc_tag_add, where the member codetag_ref *ref
of obj_exts will be referenced.Thus, a NULL pointer dereference occurs,
leading to a panic.

In order to avoid that, for the case of allocation failure where
OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL is assigned, we use cmpxchg to handle this assignment.

Thanks for Vlastimil and Suren's help with debugging.

Fixes: f7381b911640 ("slab: mark slab->obj_exts allocation failures unconditionally")
Signed-off-by: Hao Ge <gehao@...inos.cn>
---
 mm/slub.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c
index 2e4340c75be2..9e6361796e34 100644
--- a/mm/slub.c
+++ b/mm/slub.c
@@ -2054,7 +2054,7 @@ static inline void mark_objexts_empty(struct slabobj_ext *obj_exts)

 static inline void mark_failed_objexts_alloc(struct slab *slab)
 {
-	slab->obj_exts = OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL;
+	cmpxchg(&slab->obj_exts, 0, OBJEXTS_ALLOC_FAIL);
 }

 static inline void handle_failed_objexts_alloc(unsigned long obj_exts,
-- 
2.25.1