3.5.7.3 -stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.
------------------ From: Shan Hai <[email protected]> commit ce73ec6db47af84d1466402781ae0872a9e7873c upstream. The locking in update_vsyscall_tz() is not only unnecessary because the vdso code copies the data unproteced in __kernel_gettimeofday() but also introduces a hard to reproduce race condition between update_vsyscall() and update_vsyscall_tz(), which causes user space process to loop forever in vdso code. The following patch removes the locking from update_vsyscall_tz(). Locking is not only unnecessary because the vdso code copies the data unprotected in __kernel_gettimeofday() but also erroneous because updating the tb_update_count is not atomic and introduces a hard to reproduce race condition between update_vsyscall() and update_vsyscall_tz(), which further causes user space process to loop forever in vdso code. The below scenario describes the race condition, x==0 Boot CPU other CPU proc_P: x==0 timer interrupt update_vsyscall x==1 x++;sync settimeofday update_vsyscall_tz x==2 x++;sync x==3 sync;x++ sync;x++ proc_P: x==3 (loops until x becomes even) Because the ++ operator would be implemented as three instructions and not atomic on powerpc. A similar change was made for x86 in commit 6c260d58634 ("x86: vdso: Remove bogus locking in update_vsyscall_tz") Signed-off-by: Shan Hai <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Herton Ronaldo Krzesinski <[email protected]> --- arch/powerpc/kernel/time.c | 5 ----- 1 file changed, 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/time.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/time.c index be171ee..3c50ed9 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/time.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/time.c @@ -750,13 +750,8 @@ void update_vsyscall(struct timespec *wall_time, struct timespec *wtm, void update_vsyscall_tz(void) { - /* Make userspace gettimeofday spin until we're done. */ - ++vdso_data->tb_update_count; - smp_mb(); vdso_data->tz_minuteswest = sys_tz.tz_minuteswest; vdso_data->tz_dsttime = sys_tz.tz_dsttime; - smp_mb(); - ++vdso_data->tb_update_count; } static void __init clocksource_init(void) -- 1.7.9.5 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
