in profile_tick(); prof_cpu_mask remains uninitialzed until cpumask_copy()
completes while cpumask_available(prof_cpu_mask) returns true as soon as
alloc_cpumask_var(&prof_cpu_mask) completes.
We could replace alloc_cpumask_var() with zalloc_cpumask_var() and
call cpumask_copy() from create_proc_profile() on only UP kernels, for
profile_online_cpu() calls cpumask_set_cpu() as needed via
cpuhp_setup_state(CPUHP_AP_ONLINE_DYN) on SMP kernels. But this patch
removes prof_cpu_mask because it seems unnecessary.
The cpumask_test_cpu(smp_processor_id(), prof_cpu_mask) test
in profile_tick() is likely always true due to
a CPU cannot call profile_tick() if that CPU is offline
and
cpumask_set_cpu(cpu, prof_cpu_mask) is called when that CPU becomes
online and cpumask_clear_cpu(cpu, prof_cpu_mask) is called when that
CPU becomes offline
. This test could be false during transition between online and offline.
But according to include/linux/cpuhotplug.h , CPUHP_PROFILE_PREPARE
belongs to PREPARE section, which means that the CPU subjected to
profile_dead_cpu() cannot be inside profile_tick() (i.e. no risk of
use-after-free bug) because interrupt for that CPU is disabled during
PREPARE section. Therefore, this test is guaranteed to be true, and
can be removed. (Since profile_hits() checks prof_buffer != NULL, we
don't need to check prof_buffer != NULL here unless get_irq_regs() or
user_mode() is such slow that we want to avoid when prof_buffer == NULL).
do_profile_hits() is called from profile_tick() from timer interrupt
only if cpumask_test_cpu(smp_processor_id(), prof_cpu_mask) is true and
prof_buffer is not NULL. But syzbot is also reporting that sometimes
do_profile_hits() is called while current thread is still doing vzalloc(),
where prof_buffer must be NULL at this moment. This indicates that multiple
threads concurrently tried to write to /sys/kernel/profiling interface,
which caused that somebody else try to re-allocate prof_buffer despite
somebody has already allocated prof_buffer. Fix this by using
serialization.