[PATCH 5/5] perf sched: Fix register_pid() overflow, strcpy, and BUG_ON

From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo

Date: Fri Jun 05 2026 - 08:25:09 EST


From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx>

register_pid() has several issues when processing untrusted perf.data:

1. Integer overflow: (pid + 1) * sizeof(struct task_desc *) can wrap
to a small value on 32-bit systems when pid is large (e.g.
0x40000000), causing realloc to return a tiny buffer followed by
out-of-bounds writes in the initialization loop.

2. Heap buffer overflow: strcpy(task->comm, comm) copies the
untrusted comm string into a fixed 20-byte COMM_LEN buffer with
no length check.

3. BUG_ON on allocation failure: perf.data is untrusted input, so
allocation failures should be handled gracefully rather than
killing the process.

4. Realloc of sched->tasks assigned directly back, leaking the old
pointer on failure; nr_tasks incremented before the realloc,
leaving corrupted state on failure.

Cap pid at PID_MAX_LIMIT (4194304, matching the kernel's maximum
on 64-bit), replace strcpy with strlcpy, guard against NULL comm,
replace BUG_ON with NULL returns using safe realloc patterns, and
add NULL checks in callers that dereference the result.

Fixes: ec156764d424 ("perf sched: Import schedbench.c")
Reported-by: sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx>
Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
tools/perf/builtin-sched.c | 40 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
1 file changed, 30 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-sched.c b/tools/perf/builtin-sched.c
index 87a1f4cf8760e1e9..21fb820b625b43e1 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-sched.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-sched.c
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@
#define COMM_LEN 20
#define SYM_LEN 129
#define MAX_PID 1024000
+#define PID_MAX_LIMIT 4194304 /* kernel limit on 64-bit */
#define MAX_PRIO 140
#define SEP_LEN 100

@@ -448,17 +449,28 @@ static void add_sched_event_sleep(struct perf_sched *sched, struct task_desc *ta
static struct task_desc *register_pid(struct perf_sched *sched,
unsigned long pid, const char *comm)
{
- struct task_desc *task;
+ struct task_desc *task, **tasks_p;
static int pid_max;

+ /* perf.data is untrusted — cap pid to prevent overflow in size calculations */
+ if (pid >= PID_MAX_LIMIT) {
+ pr_err("pid %lu exceeds limit %d, skipping\n", pid, PID_MAX_LIMIT);
+ return NULL;
+ }
+
if (sched->pid_to_task == NULL) {
if (sysctl__read_int("kernel/pid_max", &pid_max) < 0)
pid_max = MAX_PID;
- BUG_ON((sched->pid_to_task = calloc(pid_max, sizeof(struct task_desc *))) == NULL);
+ sched->pid_to_task = calloc(pid_max, sizeof(struct task_desc *));
+ if (sched->pid_to_task == NULL)
+ return NULL;
}
if (pid >= (unsigned long)pid_max) {
- BUG_ON((sched->pid_to_task = realloc(sched->pid_to_task, (pid + 1) *
- sizeof(struct task_desc *))) == NULL);
+ void *p = realloc(sched->pid_to_task, (pid + 1) * sizeof(struct task_desc *));
+
+ if (p == NULL)
+ return NULL;
+ sched->pid_to_task = p;
while (pid >= (unsigned long)pid_max)
sched->pid_to_task[pid_max++] = NULL;
}
@@ -469,9 +481,11 @@ static struct task_desc *register_pid(struct perf_sched *sched,
return task;

task = zalloc(sizeof(*task));
+ if (task == NULL)
+ return NULL;
task->pid = pid;
- task->nr = sched->nr_tasks;
- strcpy(task->comm, comm);
+ if (comm)
+ strlcpy(task->comm, comm, sizeof(task->comm));
/*
* every task starts in sleeping state - this gets ignored
* if there's no wakeup pointing to this sleep state:
@@ -479,10 +493,12 @@ static struct task_desc *register_pid(struct perf_sched *sched,
add_sched_event_sleep(sched, task, 0);

sched->pid_to_task[pid] = task;
- sched->nr_tasks++;
- sched->tasks = realloc(sched->tasks, sched->nr_tasks * sizeof(struct task_desc *));
- BUG_ON(!sched->tasks);
- sched->tasks[task->nr] = task;
+ tasks_p = realloc(sched->tasks, (sched->nr_tasks + 1) * sizeof(struct task_desc *));
+ if (!tasks_p)
+ return NULL;
+ sched->tasks = tasks_p;
+ sched->tasks[sched->nr_tasks] = task;
+ task->nr = sched->nr_tasks++;

if (verbose > 0)
printf("registered task #%ld, PID %ld (%s)\n", sched->nr_tasks, pid, comm);
@@ -841,6 +857,8 @@ replay_wakeup_event(struct perf_sched *sched,

waker = register_pid(sched, sample->tid, "<unknown>");
wakee = register_pid(sched, pid, comm);
+ if (waker == NULL || wakee == NULL)
+ return -1;

add_sched_event_wakeup(sched, waker, sample->time, wakee);
return 0;
@@ -881,6 +899,8 @@ static int replay_switch_event(struct perf_sched *sched,

prev = register_pid(sched, prev_pid, prev_comm);
next = register_pid(sched, next_pid, next_comm);
+ if (prev == NULL || next == NULL)
+ return -1;

sched->cpu_last_switched[cpu] = timestamp;

--
2.54.0