linux-stable.git/kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c, branch v6.6.154

ring-buffer: Use current_context for safe per-CPU buffer swap

2026-08-23T12:20:07+00:00

[ Upstream commit f27bdc43077e4fcb5557dfc315ee8d91e741f483 ]

The ring_buffer_swap_cpu() function currently checks the per-CPU
committing counter to determine if a buffer is actively being written to
before performing the swap. However, there exists a race window where
this check can be bypassed:

    ring_buffer_lock_reserve
        cpu_buffer = buffer->buffers[cpu];       // cpu_buffer_a
        rb_reserve_next_event
            rb_start_commit // inc committing
            if (unlikely(READ_ONCE(cpu_buffer->buffer) != buffer)) {...}
            __rb_reserve_next
                rb_move_tail
                    rb_end_commit(cpu_buffer);   // dec committing => 0
                    /* interrupt hits here, successfully swaps! */
                    local_inc(&cpu_buffer->committing);

    ring_buffer_unlock_commit
        cpu_buffer = buffer->buffers[cpu];      // cpu_buffer_b
        rb_commit
            rb_end_commit
            RB_WARN_ON(cpu_buffer, !local_read(&cpu_buffer->committing))
                                                // triggers warning

The committing counter can temporarily drop to 0 during a single write
operation (within rb_move_tail), creating a window where swap can
succeed even though the write is still in progress. This leads to
inconsistent buffer state and triggers the RB_WARN_ON in rb_commit().

Replace the committing counter check with current_context checks, which
are set at the entry of ring_buffer_lock_reserve() and remain valid
throughout the entire write operation, providing a reliable indicator of
buffer busy state during swap.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Fixes: 4239c38fe0b3 ("ring-buffer: Process commits whenever moving to a new page.")
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260803005640.2445666-2-wutengda@huaweicloud.com
Signed-off-by: Tengda Wu 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Remove jump to out label in ring_buffer_swap_cpu()

2026-08-23T12:20:07+00:00

[ Upstream commit f115d2b70bff2665f67fa8e8dc5ed9452b696c44 ]

The function ring_buffer_swap_cpu() has a bunch of jumps to the label out
that simply returns "ret". There's no reason to jump to a label that
simply returns a value. Just return directly from there.

This goes back to almost the beginning when commit 8aabee573dff
("ring-buffer: remove unneeded get_online_cpus") was introduced. That
commit removed a put_online_cpus() from that label, but never updated all
the jumps to it that now no longer needed to do anything but return a
value.

Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250527145753.6b45d840@gandalf.local.home
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Stable-dep-of: f27bdc43077e ("ring-buffer: Use current_context for safe per-CPU buffer swap")
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop()

2026-08-19T16:13:12+00:00

commit 91542863abade2fd4f2b361991f5386ad9d19c8c upstream.

In test_ringbuffer()'s out_free cleanup loop, the check
`!rb_threads[cpu]` only catches NULL entries and misses entries that
hold an ERR_PTR.

rb_threads[] is static, so unassigned slots are NULL. But when
kthread_run_on_cpu() fails for a cpu, it stores ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) (or
-EINTR) in rb_threads[cpu] before the creation loop jumps to out_free.
That entry is non-NULL, so the old `!ptr` check does not break, and the
cleanup proceeds to call kthread_stop() on the ERR_PTR. kthread_stop()
then dereferences the bogus pointer, crashing the kernel during the
late_initcall self-test.

crash logs:
  BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000001c
  Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
  CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc6-dirty #7 PREEMPT(lazy)
  RIP: 0010:kthread_stop+0x2e/0x220
  RBX: fffffffffffffff4
  CR2: 000000000000001c
  Call Trace:
   
   test_ringbuffer+0x1ec/0x650
   do_one_initcall+0x6c/0x2c0
   kernel_init_freeable+0x21d/0x420
   kernel_init+0x15/0x1c0
   ret_from_fork+0x21b/0x320
   
  Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Fixes: 64ed3a049e3e ("ring-buffer: make use of the helper function kthread_run_on_cpu()")
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260807154145.2846521-2-sh_def@163.com
Signed-off-by: Hui Su 
Reviewed-by: Vincent Donnefort 
Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ring-buffer: Fix event length with forced 8-byte alignment

2026-07-24T14:03:28+00:00

[ Upstream commit c37e0a4b79a6bbb96ce5ffe279d7c001e20529e0 ]

When RB_FORCE_8BYTE_ALIGNMENT is true, rb_calculate_event_length()
reserves the space of event->array[0] for placing the data length and
rb_update_event() stores the data length in event->array[0]
accordingly. As a result the whole event length will add extra 4 bytes
for sizeof(event.array[0]) unconditionally.

But ring_buffer_event_length() only subtracts the
sizeof(event->array[0]) for events larger than RB_MAX_SMALL_DATA +
sizeof(event->array[0]). As a result, small events on architectures
with RB_FORCE_8BYTE_ALIGNMENT=true report a data length that is 4
bytes larger than expected.

To fix it, add the RB_FORCE_8BYTE_ALIGNMENT as a condition to subtract
the size of that length field whenever RB_FORCE_8BYTE_ALIGNMENT is
true.

This issue is observed in a riscv64 kernel with
CONFIG_HAVE_64BIT_ALIGNED_ACCESS set to y, when we run ftrace selftest
trace_marker_raw.tc, we get the weird log: for cases where the id is
1..100, the number of data field is 8*N, but once id exceeds 100, the
number of data field becomes 8*N+4:
 # 1 buf: 58 00 00 00 80 5e d1 63 (number of data field is 8*1)
 ...
 # a buf: 58 ...                  (number of data field is 8*2)
 ...
 # 64 buf: 58 ...                 (number of data field is 8*13)
 # 65 buf: 58 ...                 (number of data field is 8*13+4)

After applying this change, the number of data field keeps being 8*N+4
consistently.

Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260607072431.125633-2-hui.wang@canonical.com
Fixes: 2271048d1b3b ("ring-buffer: Do 8 byte alignment for 64 bit that can not handle 4 byte align")
Signed-off-by: Hui Wang 
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Remove ring_buffer_read_prepare_sync()

2026-07-04T11:42:19+00:00

[ Upstream commit 119a5d573622ae90ba730d18acfae9bb75d77b9a ]

When the ring buffer was first introduced, reading the non-consuming
"trace" file required disabling the writing of the ring buffer. To make
sure the writing was fully disabled before iterating the buffer with a
non-consuming read, it would set the disable flag of the buffer and then
call an RCU synchronization to make sure all the buffers were
synchronized.

The function ring_buffer_read_start() originally  would initialize the
iterator and call an RCU synchronization, but this was for each individual
per CPU buffer where this would get called many times on a machine with
many CPUs before the trace file could be read. The commit 72c9ddfd4c5bf
("ring-buffer: Make non-consuming read less expensive with lots of cpus.")
separated ring_buffer_read_start into ring_buffer_read_prepare(),
ring_buffer_read_sync() and then ring_buffer_read_start() to allow each of
the per CPU buffers to be prepared, call the read_buffer_read_sync() once,
and then the ring_buffer_read_start() for each of the CPUs which made
things much faster.

The commit 1039221cc278 ("ring-buffer: Do not disable recording when there
is an iterator") removed the requirement of disabling the recording of the
ring buffer in order to iterate it, but it did not remove the
synchronization that was happening that was required to wait for all the
buffers to have no more writers. It's now OK for the buffers to have
writers and no synchronization is needed.

Remove the synchronization and put back the interface for the ring buffer
iterator back before commit 72c9ddfd4c5bf was applied.

Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250630180440.3eabb514@batman.local.home
Reported-by: David Howells 
Fixes: 1039221cc278 ("ring-buffer: Do not disable recording when there is an iterator")
Tested-by: David Howells 
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Assisted-by: Kiro:claude-opus-4.8
Signed-off-by: Bjoern Doebel 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Fix reporting of missed events in iterator

2026-06-01T15:43:07+00:00

commit a254b6d13b0edd6272926674d2afc46d46e496b7 upstream.

When tracing is active while reading the trace file, if the iterator
reading the buffer detects that the writer has passed the iterator head,
it will reset and set a "missed events" flag. This flag is passed to the
output processing to show the user that events were missed:

  CPU:4 [LOST EVENTS]

The problem is that the flag is reset after it is checked in
ring_buffer_iter_dropped(). But the "trace" file iterates over all the CPU
ring buffers and it will check if they are dropped when figuring out which
buffer to print next. This prematurely clears the missed_events flag if
the CPU buffer with the missed events is not the one that is printed next.

On the iteration where the CPU buffer with the missed events is printed,
the check if it had missed events would return false and the output does
not show that events were missed.

Do not reset the missed_events flag when checking if there were missed
events, but instead clear it when moving the iterator head to the next
event.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260520220801.4fd09d13@fedora
Fixes: c9b7a4a72ff64 ("ring-buffer/tracing: Have iterator acknowledge dropped events")
Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ring-buffer: Avoid softlockup in ring_buffer_resize() during memory free

2026-02-11T12:39:11+00:00

[ Upstream commit 6435ffd6c7fcba330dfa91c58dc30aed2df3d0bf ]

When user resize all trace ring buffer through file 'buffer_size_kb',
then in ring_buffer_resize(), kernel allocates buffer pages for each
cpu in a loop.

If the kernel preemption model is PREEMPT_NONE and there are many cpus
and there are many buffer pages to be freed, it may not give up cpu
for a long time and finally cause a softlockup.

To avoid it, call cond_resched() after each cpu buffer free as Commit
f6bd2c92488c ("ring-buffer: Avoid softlockup in ring_buffer_resize()")
does.

Detailed call trace as follow:

  rcu: INFO: rcu_sched self-detected stall on CPU
  rcu: 	24-....: (14837 ticks this GP) idle=521c/1/0x4000000000000000 softirq=230597/230597 fqs=5329
  rcu: 	(t=15004 jiffies g=26003221 q=211022 ncpus=96)
  CPU: 24 UID: 0 PID: 11253 Comm: bash Kdump: loaded Tainted: G            EL      6.18.2+ #278 NONE
  pc : arch_local_irq_restore+0x8/0x20
   arch_local_irq_restore+0x8/0x20 (P)
   free_frozen_page_commit+0x28c/0x3b0
   __free_frozen_pages+0x1c0/0x678
   ___free_pages+0xc0/0xe0
   free_pages+0x3c/0x50
   ring_buffer_resize.part.0+0x6a8/0x880
   ring_buffer_resize+0x3c/0x58
   __tracing_resize_ring_buffer.part.0+0x34/0xd8
   tracing_resize_ring_buffer+0x8c/0xd0
   tracing_entries_write+0x74/0xd8
   vfs_write+0xcc/0x288
   ksys_write+0x74/0x118
   __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x38

Cc: 
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251228065008.2396573-1-mawupeng1@huawei.com
Signed-off-by: Wupeng Ma 
Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Fix bytes_dropped calculation issue

2025-04-10T12:37:35+00:00

[ Upstream commit c73f0b69648501978e8b3e8fa7eef7f4197d0481 ]

The calculation of bytes-dropped and bytes_dropped_nested is reversed.
Although it does not affect the final calculation of total_dropped,
it should still be modified.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250223070106.6781-1-yangfeng59949@163.com
Fixes: 6c43e554a2a5 ("ring-buffer: Add ring buffer startup selftest")
Signed-off-by: Feng Yang 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

ring-buffer: Fix a race between readers and resize checks

2024-06-12T09:11:19+00:00

commit c2274b908db05529980ec056359fae916939fdaa upstream.

The reader code in rb_get_reader_page() swaps a new reader page into the
ring buffer by doing cmpxchg on old->list.prev->next to point it to the
new page. Following that, if the operation is successful,
old->list.next->prev gets updated too. This means the underlying
doubly-linked list is temporarily inconsistent, page->prev->next or
page->next->prev might not be equal back to page for some page in the
ring buffer.

The resize operation in ring_buffer_resize() can be invoked in parallel.
It calls rb_check_pages() which can detect the described inconsistency
and stop further tracing:

[  190.271762] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[  190.271771] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 6186 at kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c:1467 rb_check_pages.isra.0+0x6a/0xa0
[  190.271789] Modules linked in: [...]
[  190.271991] Unloaded tainted modules: intel_uncore_frequency(E):1 skx_edac(E):1
[  190.272002] CPU: 1 PID: 6186 Comm: cmd.sh Kdump: loaded Tainted: G            E      6.9.0-rc6-default #5 158d3e1e6d0b091c34c3b96bfd99a1c58306d79f
[  190.272011] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.16.0-0-gd239552c-rebuilt.opensuse.org 04/01/2014
[  190.272015] RIP: 0010:rb_check_pages.isra.0+0x6a/0xa0
[  190.272023] Code: [...]
[  190.272028] RSP: 0018:ffff9c37463abb70 EFLAGS: 00010206
[  190.272034] RAX: ffff8eba04b6cb80 RBX: 0000000000000007 RCX: ffff8eba01f13d80
[  190.272038] RDX: ffff8eba01f130c0 RSI: ffff8eba04b6cd00 RDI: ffff8eba0004c700
[  190.272042] RBP: ffff8eba0004c700 R08: 0000000000010002 R09: 0000000000000000
[  190.272045] R10: 00000000ffff7f52 R11: ffff8eba7f600000 R12: ffff8eba0004c720
[  190.272049] R13: ffff8eba00223a00 R14: 0000000000000008 R15: ffff8eba067a8000
[  190.272053] FS:  00007f1bd64752c0(0000) GS:ffff8eba7f680000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[  190.272057] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[  190.272061] CR2: 00007f1bd6662590 CR3: 000000010291e001 CR4: 0000000000370ef0
[  190.272070] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[  190.272073] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[  190.272077] Call Trace:
[  190.272098]  
[  190.272189]  ring_buffer_resize+0x2ab/0x460
[  190.272199]  __tracing_resize_ring_buffer.part.0+0x23/0xa0
[  190.272206]  tracing_resize_ring_buffer+0x65/0x90
[  190.272216]  tracing_entries_write+0x74/0xc0
[  190.272225]  vfs_write+0xf5/0x420
[  190.272248]  ksys_write+0x67/0xe0
[  190.272256]  do_syscall_64+0x82/0x170
[  190.272363]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
[  190.272373] RIP: 0033:0x7f1bd657d263
[  190.272381] Code: [...]
[  190.272385] RSP: 002b:00007ffe72b643f8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000001
[  190.272391] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000002 RCX: 00007f1bd657d263
[  190.272395] RDX: 0000000000000002 RSI: 0000555a6eb538e0 RDI: 0000000000000001
[  190.272398] RBP: 0000555a6eb538e0 R08: 000000000000000a R09: 0000000000000000
[  190.272401] R10: 0000555a6eb55190 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007f1bd6662500
[  190.272404] R13: 0000000000000002 R14: 00007f1bd6667c00 R15: 0000000000000002
[  190.272412]  
[  190.272414] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

Note that ring_buffer_resize() calls rb_check_pages() only if the parent
trace_buffer has recording disabled. Recent commit d78ab792705c
("tracing: Stop current tracer when resizing buffer") causes that it is
now always the case which makes it more likely to experience this issue.

The window to hit this race is nonetheless very small. To help
reproducing it, one can add a delay loop in rb_get_reader_page():

 ret = rb_head_page_replace(reader, cpu_buffer->reader_page);
 if (!ret)
 	goto spin;
 for (unsigned i = 0; i < 1U << 26; i++)  /* inserted delay loop */
 	__asm__ __volatile__ ("" : : : "memory");
 rb_list_head(reader->list.next)->prev = &cpu_buffer->reader_page->list;

.. and then run the following commands on the target system:

 echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/sched/sched_switch/enable
 while true; do
 	echo 16 > /sys/kernel/tracing/buffer_size_kb; sleep 0.1
 	echo 8 > /sys/kernel/tracing/buffer_size_kb; sleep 0.1
 done &
 while true; do
 	for i in /sys/kernel/tracing/per_cpu/*; do
 		timeout 0.1 cat $i/trace_pipe; sleep 0.2
 	done
 done

To fix the problem, make sure ring_buffer_resize() doesn't invoke
rb_check_pages() concurrently with a reader operating on the same
ring_buffer_per_cpu by taking its cpu_buffer->reader_lock.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-trace-kernel/20240517134008.24529-3-petr.pavlu@suse.com

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu 
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers 
Fixes: 659f451ff213 ("ring-buffer: Add integrity check at end of iter read")
Signed-off-by: Petr Pavlu 
[ Fixed whitespace ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ring-buffer: Only update pages_touched when a new page is touched

2024-04-17T09:19:25+00:00

commit ffe3986fece696cf65e0ef99e74c75f848be8e30 upstream.

The "buffer_percent" logic that is used by the ring buffer splice code to
only wake up the tasks when there's no data after the buffer is filled to
the percentage of the "buffer_percent" file is dependent on three
variables that determine the amount of data that is in the ring buffer:

 1) pages_read - incremented whenever a new sub-buffer is consumed
 2) pages_lost - incremented every time a writer overwrites a sub-buffer
 3) pages_touched - incremented when a write goes to a new sub-buffer

The percentage is the calculation of:

  (pages_touched - (pages_lost + pages_read)) / nr_pages

Basically, the amount of data is the total number of sub-bufs that have been
touched, minus the number of sub-bufs lost and sub-bufs consumed. This is
divided by the total count to give the buffer percentage. When the
percentage is greater than the value in the "buffer_percent" file, it
wakes up splice readers waiting for that amount.

It was observed that over time, the amount read from the splice was
constantly decreasing the longer the trace was running. That is, if one
asked for 60%, it would read over 60% when it first starts tracing, but
then it would be woken up at under 60% and would slowly decrease the
amount of data read after being woken up, where the amount becomes much
less than the buffer percent.

This was due to an accounting of the pages_touched incrementation. This
value is incremented whenever a writer transfers to a new sub-buffer. But
the place where it was incremented was incorrect. If a writer overflowed
the current sub-buffer it would go to the next one. If it gets preempted
by an interrupt at that time, and the interrupt performs a trace, it too
will end up going to the next sub-buffer. But only one should increment
the counter. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Change the cmpxchg() that does the real switch of the tail-page into a
try_cmpxchg(), and on success, perform the increment of pages_touched. This
will only increment the counter once for when the writer moves to a new
sub-buffer, and not when there's a race and is incremented for when a
writer and its preempting writer both move to the same new sub-buffer.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-trace-kernel/20240409151309.0d0e5056@gandalf.local.home

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers 
Fixes: 2c2b0a78b3739 ("ring-buffer: Add percentage of ring buffer full to wake up reader")
Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman