[PATCH] locking/rwsem: Fix improper return value of __rwsem_del_waiter()
From: Waiman Long
Date: Tue Mar 17 2026 - 23:25:11 EST
Commit 1ea4b473504b ("locking/rwsem: Remove the list_head from struct
rw_semaphore") introduces a new __rwsem_del_waiter() which return
true if the wait list is going to be empty after deletion and false
otherwise. However this return value is the exact oppsite of the value
returned by rwsem_del_waiter() and __rwsem_del_waiter() is used as if
its return value matches that of rwsem_del_waiter().
This caused a null pointer dereference in rwsem_mark_wake() because it
was being called when sem->first_waiter was NULL.
Andrei sent a patch [1] to reverse the polarity of the return value to
match that of rwsem_del_waiter() which can fix this bug. To make it
better, I believe we should either put the same return value comment
at the top of __rwsem_del_waiter() to make this clear or don't return
a value at all.
This patch adopts the later approach by making __rwsem_del_waiter()
a void function and using rwsem_is_contended() to check if the wait
list is empty or not. This will make the code more readable.
Below is the size comparison of the gcc compiled rwsem.o object files.
text data bss dec hex filename
Before 6791 696 0 7487 1d3f kernel/locking/rwsem.o
Andrei patch 6887 696 0 7583 1d9f kernel/locking/rwsem.o
This patch 6823 696 0 7519 1d5f kernel/locking/rwsem.o
So this patch isn't bad from the size perspective.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260314182607.3343346-1-avagin@xxxxxxxxxx/
Reported-by: syzbot+3d2ff92c67127d337463@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fixes: 1ea4b473504b ("locking/rwsem: Remove the list_head from struct rw_semaphore")
Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/locking/rwsem.c | 9 ++++-----
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
index ba4cb74de064..e8fee8cc933f 100644
--- a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
@@ -365,12 +365,12 @@ enum rwsem_wake_type {
#define MAX_READERS_WAKEUP 0x100
static inline
-bool __rwsem_del_waiter(struct rw_semaphore *sem, struct rwsem_waiter *waiter)
+void __rwsem_del_waiter(struct rw_semaphore *sem, struct rwsem_waiter *waiter)
__must_hold(&sem->wait_lock)
{
if (list_empty(&waiter->list)) {
sem->first_waiter = NULL;
- return true;
+ return;
}
if (sem->first_waiter == waiter) {
@@ -378,8 +378,6 @@ bool __rwsem_del_waiter(struct rw_semaphore *sem, struct rwsem_waiter *waiter)
struct rwsem_waiter, list);
}
list_del(&waiter->list);
-
- return false;
}
/*
@@ -394,7 +392,8 @@ static inline bool
rwsem_del_waiter(struct rw_semaphore *sem, struct rwsem_waiter *waiter)
{
lockdep_assert_held(&sem->wait_lock);
- if (__rwsem_del_waiter(sem, waiter))
+ __rwsem_del_waiter(sem, waiter);
+ if (rwsem_is_contended(sem))
return true;
atomic_long_andnot(RWSEM_FLAG_HANDOFF | RWSEM_FLAG_WAITERS, &sem->count);
return false;
--
2.53.0