Re: [patch 0/2] x86/alternatives: Prevent crash in NOP optimizer

From: Paul Gortmaker
Date: Fri Dec 08 2023 - 03:35:32 EST


[[patch 0/2] x86/alternatives: Prevent crash in NOP optimizer] On 07/12/2023 (Thu 20:49) Thomas Gleixner wrote:

> The following series addresses the regression report from Paul on behalf of
> the yocto project. It turns out that the recent changes to alternatives
> opened a race window where interrupts are enabled and NOPs are optimized in
> place. An interrupt hitting into the modification will observe inconsistent
> text and crash and burn.
>
> A 32bit QEMU crashes w/o these fixes reliably within about 50 boot
> attempts. With the fix applied it survived close to 600 attempts by
> now.

I can confirm that - since I was already set up for it, I let it run
overnight for about 1250 attempts. With an average of one in 200 that I
was seeing before, I should have had around six fails. Didn't see one.

> Thanks to Paul for providing all the information!

On behalf of Richard and myself, thanks for the complex fix.

Paul.
--

>
> Thanks,
>
> tglx
>
>