dm sysfs: fix a module unload race

This reverts commit be35f48610 ("dm: wait until embedded kobject is
released before destroying a device") and provides an improved fix.

The kobject release code that calls the completion must be placed in a
non-module file, otherwise there is a module unload race (if the process
calling dm_kobject_release is preempted and the DM module unloaded after
the completion is triggered, but before dm_kobject_release returns).

To fix this race, this patch moves the completion code to dm-builtin.c
which is always compiled directly into the kernel if BLK_DEV_DM is
selected.

The patch introduces a new dm_kobject_holder structure, its purpose is
to keep the completion and kobject in one place, so that it can be
accessed from non-module code without the need to export the layout of
struct mapped_device to that code.

Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org

1 files changed, 48 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/md/dm-builtin.c b/drivers/md/dm-builtin.c
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6c9049c51b2b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/drivers/md/dm-builtin.c
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+#include "dm.h"
+
+/*
+ * The kobject release method must not be placed in the module itself,
+ * otherwise we are subject to module unload races.
+ *
+ * The release method is called when the last reference to the kobject is
+ * dropped. It may be called by any other kernel code that drops the last
+ * reference.
+ *
+ * The release method suffers from module unload race. We may prevent the
+ * module from being unloaded at the start of the release method (using
+ * increased module reference count or synchronizing against the release
+ * method), however there is no way to prevent the module from being
+ * unloaded at the end of the release method.
+ *
+ * If this code were placed in the dm module, the following race may
+ * happen:
+ *  1. Some other process takes a reference to dm kobject
+ *  2. The user issues ioctl function to unload the dm device
+ *  3. dm_sysfs_exit calls kobject_put, however the object is not released
+ *     because of the other reference taken at step 1
+ *  4. dm_sysfs_exit waits on the completion
+ *  5. The other process that took the reference in step 1 drops it,
+ *     dm_kobject_release is called from this process
+ *  6. dm_kobject_release calls complete()
+ *  7. a reschedule happens before dm_kobject_release returns
+ *  8. dm_sysfs_exit continues, the dm device is unloaded, module reference
+ *     count is decremented
+ *  9. The user unloads the dm module
+ * 10. The other process that was rescheduled in step 7 continues to run,
+ *     it is now executing code in unloaded module, so it crashes
+ *
+ * Note that if the process that takes the foreign reference to dm kobject
+ * has a low priority and the system is sufficiently loaded with
+ * higher-priority processes that prevent the low-priority process from
+ * being scheduled long enough, this bug may really happen.
+ *
+ * In order to fix this module unload race, we place the release method
+ * into a helper code that is compiled directly into the kernel.
+ */
+
+void dm_kobject_release(struct kobject *kobj)
+{
+	complete(dm_get_completion_from_kobject(kobj));
+}
+
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(dm_kobject_release);