[PATCH v2] coresight: Fix scheduling while atomic in coresight_put_percpu_source_ref()

Mohamed Ayman mohamedaymanworkspace at gmail.com
Mon Jul 13 16:00:27 PDT 2026


Dropping the last reference to a coresight_device triggers a kernel panic
on PREEMPT_RT builds due to a "scheduling while atomic" violation.

During CPU idle transitions, coresight_cpu_pm_notify() runs with
interrupts disabled. It eventually calls put_device(), which can
synchronously trigger the device's release callback and drop the parent
device's reference. On PREEMPT_RT, free_percpu() takes a sleeping lock
(rt-mutex), and the parent's release callback might also sleep. Sleeping
in this atomic PM context crashes the system.

A previous patch tried deferring just the coresight_device_release() body,
but this still left the synchronous put_device() call dangerously exposed
to sleeping parent release functions.

Fix this by entirely deferring the put_device() call to process context.
We add a pending counter (put_pending) and a work_struct to the coresight
device. When releasing a reference, we increment the counter and queue
the work. A worker thread then safely drains the counter and calls
put_device(). The counter prevents leaking references if multiple puts
are queued before the worker even has a chance to run.

To prevent a use-after-free race condition during module unload, the work
is queued on a dedicated coresight_wq which is safely drained and
destroyed in coresight_exit().

Finally, remove the unnecessary raw_spinlock_irqsave in the put path,
as dropping a reference doesn't require protecting the per-CPU table.

Signed-off-by: Mohamed Ayman <mohamedaymanworkspace at gmail.com>
---
 drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-core.c | 37 ++++++++++++++------
 include/linux/coresight.h                    |  3 ++
 2 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-core.c b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-core.c
index 6d65c43d5..e931e6bdc 100644
--- a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-core.c
+++ b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-core.c
@@ -63,6 +63,8 @@ static LIST_HEAD(coresight_dev_idx_list);
 
 static const struct cti_assoc_op *cti_assoc_ops;
 
+static struct workqueue_struct *coresight_wq;
+
 static struct coresight_node *
 coresight_path_first_node(struct coresight_path *path)
 {
@@ -132,6 +134,16 @@ static void coresight_clear_percpu_source(struct coresight_device *csdev)
 	per_cpu(csdev_source, csdev->cpu) = NULL;
 }
 
+static void coresight_put_device_work(struct work_struct *work)
+{
+	struct coresight_device *csdev =
+		container_of(work, struct coresight_device, put_work);
+	int n = atomic_xchg(&csdev->put_pending, 0);
+
+	while (n--)
+		put_device(&csdev->dev);
+}
+
 struct coresight_device *coresight_get_percpu_source_ref(int cpu)
 {
 	struct coresight_device *csdev;
@@ -163,16 +175,9 @@ void coresight_put_percpu_source_ref(struct coresight_device *csdev)
 	if (!csdev || !coresight_is_percpu_source(csdev))
 		return;
 
-	guard(raw_spinlock_irqsave)(&coresight_dev_lock);
+	atomic_inc(&csdev->put_pending);
 
-	/*
-	 * TODO: coresight_device_release() is invoked to release resources when
-	 * the device's refcount reaches zero. It then calls free_percpu(),
-	 * which acquires pcpu_lock — a sleepable lock when PREEMPT_RT is
-	 * enabled. Since the raw spinlock coresight_dev_lock is held, this can
-	 * lead to a potential "scheduling while atomic" issue.
-	 */
-	put_device(&csdev->dev);
+	queue_work(coresight_wq, &csdev->put_work);
 }
 
 struct coresight_device *coresight_get_source(struct coresight_path *path)
@@ -1563,6 +1568,9 @@ coresight_init_device(struct coresight_desc *desc)
 	csdev->dev.release = coresight_device_release;
 	csdev->dev.bus = &coresight_bustype;
 
+	INIT_WORK(&csdev->put_work, coresight_put_device_work);
+	atomic_set(&csdev->put_pending, 0);
+
 	return csdev;
 }
 
@@ -2090,9 +2098,13 @@ static int __init coresight_init(void)
 {
 	int ret;
 
+	coresight_wq = alloc_workqueue("coresight_wq", 0, 0);
+	if (!coresight_wq)
+		return -ENOMEM;
+
 	ret = bus_register(&coresight_bustype);
 	if (ret)
-		return ret;
+		goto exit_wq;
 
 	ret = etm_perf_init();
 	if (ret)
@@ -2121,6 +2133,8 @@ static int __init coresight_init(void)
 	etm_perf_exit();
 exit_bus_unregister:
 	bus_unregister(&coresight_bustype);
+exit_wq:
+	destroy_workqueue(coresight_wq);
 	return ret;
 }
 
@@ -2133,6 +2147,9 @@ static void __exit coresight_exit(void)
 	etm_perf_exit();
 	bus_unregister(&coresight_bustype);
 	coresight_release_device_list();
+
+	if (coresight_wq)
+		destroy_workqueue(coresight_wq);
 }
 
 module_init(coresight_init);
diff --git a/include/linux/coresight.h b/include/linux/coresight.h
index ddf18c970..589a6c20d 100644
--- a/include/linux/coresight.h
+++ b/include/linux/coresight.h
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 #include <linux/perf_event.h>
 #include <linux/sched.h>
 #include <linux/platform_device.h>
+#include <linux/workqueue.h>
 
 /* Peripheral id registers (0xFD0-0xFEC) */
 #define CORESIGHT_PERIPHIDR4	0xfd0
@@ -293,6 +294,8 @@ struct coresight_device {
 	struct csdev_access access;
 	struct device dev;
 	struct coresight_path *path;
+	struct work_struct put_work;
+	atomic_t put_pending;
 	atomic_t mode;
 	int refcnt;
 	int cpu;
-- 
2.34.1




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