kmod: avoid deadlock from recursive kmod call
The system deadlocks (at least since 2.6.10) when call_usermodehelper(UMH_WAIT_EXEC) request triggers call_usermodehelper(UMH_WAIT_PROC) request. This is because "khelper thread is waiting for the worker thread at wait_for_completion() in do_fork() since the worker thread was created with CLONE_VFORK flag" and "the worker thread cannot call complete() because do_execve() is blocked at UMH_WAIT_PROC request" and "the khelper thread cannot start processing UMH_WAIT_PROC request because the khelper thread is waiting for the worker thread at wait_for_completion() in do_fork()". The easiest example to observe this deadlock is to use a corrupted /sbin/hotplug binary (like shown below). # : > /tmp/dummy # chmod 755 /tmp/dummy # echo /tmp/dummy > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug # modprobe whatever call_usermodehelper("/tmp/dummy", UMH_WAIT_EXEC) is called from kobject_uevent_env() in lib/kobject_uevent.c upon loading/unloading a module. do_execve("/tmp/dummy") triggers a call to request_module("binfmt-0000") from search_binary_handler() which in turn calls call_usermodehelper(UMH_WAIT_PROC). In order to avoid deadlock, as a for-now and easy-to-backport solution, do not try to call wait_for_completion() in call_usermodehelper_exec() if the worker thread was created by khelper thread with CLONE_VFORK flag. Future and fundamental solution might be replacing singleton khelper thread with some workqueue so that recursive calls up to max_active dependency loop can be handled without deadlock. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: add comment to kmod_thread_locker] Signed-off-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp> Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> Acked-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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