linux/include
Steven Rostedt 76ed27608f perf: sched: Fix perf crash with new is_user_task() helper
In order to do a user space stacktrace the current task needs to be a user
task that has executed in user space. It use to be possible to test if a
task is a user task or not by simply checking the task_struct mm field. If
it was non NULL, it was a user task and if not it was a kernel task.

But things have changed over time, and some kernel tasks now have their
own mm field.

An idea was made to instead test PF_KTHREAD and two functions were used to
wrap this check in case it became more complex to test if a task was a
user task or not[1]. But this was rejected and the C code simply checked
the PF_KTHREAD directly.

It was later found that not all kernel threads set PF_KTHREAD. The io-uring
helpers instead set PF_USER_WORKER and this needed to be added as well.

But checking the flags is still not enough. There's a very small window
when a task exits that it frees its mm field and it is set back to NULL.
If perf were to trigger at this moment, the flags test would say its a
user space task but when perf would read the mm field it would crash with
at NULL pointer dereference.

Now there are flags that can be used to test if a task is exiting, but
they are set in areas that perf may still want to profile the user space
task (to see where it exited). The only real test is to check both the
flags and the mm field.

Instead of making this modification in every location, create a new
is_user_task() helper function that does all the tests needed to know if
it is safe to read the user space memory or not.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250425204120.639530125@goodmis.org/

Fixes: 90942f9fac ("perf: Use current->flags & PF_KTHREAD|PF_USER_WORKER instead of current->mm == NULL")
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/0d877e6f-41a7-4724-875d-0b0a27b8a545@roeck-us.net/
Reported-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Tested-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260129102821.46484722@gandalf.local.home
2026-01-30 23:06:07 +01:00
..
acpi ACPI: PCI: IRQ: Fix INTx GSIs signedness 2026-01-05 19:06:40 +01:00
asm-generic mm/hugetlb: fix excessive IPI broadcasts when unsharing PMD tables using mmu_gather 2026-01-20 09:34:26 -08:00
clocksource
crypto
cxl
drm drm, drm/xe: Fix xe userptr in the absence of CONFIG_DEVICE_PRIVATE 2026-01-22 10:41:18 +01:00
dt-bindings dt-bindings: power: qcom,rpmpd: Add SC8280XP_MXC_AO 2025-12-16 15:24:09 -08:00
hyperv mshv: add definitions for arm64 gpa intercepts 2026-01-15 07:28:58 +00:00
keys
kunit kunit: Enforce task execution in {soft,hard}irq contexts 2025-12-22 12:20:08 -08:00
kvm
linux perf: sched: Fix perf crash with new is_user_task() helper 2026-01-30 23:06:07 +01:00
math-emu
media
memory
misc
net Another set of updates: 2026-01-22 07:54:31 -08:00
pcmcia
ras Significant patch series in this merge are as follows: 2025-12-05 13:52:43 -08:00
rdma
rv
scsi scsi: core: Fix error handler encryption support 2026-01-04 15:16:20 -05:00
soc This pull request is entirely SoC clk drivers, not for lack of trying to modify 2025-12-08 09:38:52 +09:00
sound ALSA: pcm: Improve the fix for race of buffer access at PCM OSS layer 2026-01-08 08:07:54 +01:00
target
trace rxrpc: Fix recvmsg() unconditional requeue 2026-01-19 10:07:06 -08:00
uapi Char/Misc/IIO driver fixes for 6.19-rc7 2026-01-25 09:57:31 -08:00
ufs
vdso
video
xen
Kbuild