A kernel panic is observed when handling machine check exceptions from
real mode.
BUG: Unable to handle kernel data access on read at 0xc00000006be21300
Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1]
MSR: 8000000000001003 <SF,ME,RI,LE> CR: 88222248 XER: 00000005
CFAR: c00000000003ffc4 DAR: c00000006be21300 DSISR: 40000000 IRQMASK: 0
NIP [c000000000029e40] arch_irq_work_raise+0x10/0x70
LR [c00000000003ffc8] machine_check_queue_event+0xa8/0x150
Call Trace:
[c0000000179d3c70] [c00000000003ff64] machine_check_queue_event+0x44/0x150
[c0000000179d3d30] [c0000000000084e0] machine_check_early_common+0x1f0/0x2c0
The crash occurs because arch_irq_work_raise() calls preempt_disable()
from machine check exception (MCE) handlers running in real mode. In
this context, accessing the preempt_count can fault, leading to the panic.
The preempt_disable()/preempt_enable() pair in arch_irq_work_raise()
was originally added by commit 0fe1ac48be ("powerpc/perf_event: Fix
oops due to perf_event_do_pending call") to avoid races while raising
irq work from exception context.
Later, commit 471ba0e686 ("irq_work: Do not raise an IPI when
queueing work on the local CPU") added preemption protection in
irq_work_queue() path, while commit 20b876918c ("irq_work: Use per
cpu atomics instead of regular atomics") added equivalent
protection in irq_work_queue_on() before reaching arch_irq_work_raise():
irq_work_queue() / irq_work_queue_on()
-> preempt_disable()
-> __irq_work_queue_local()
-> irq_work_raise()
-> arch_irq_work_raise()
As a result, callers other than mce_irq_work_raise() already execute
with preemption disabled, making the additional
preempt_disable()/preempt_enable() pair in arch_irq_work_raise()
redundant.
The arch_irq_work_raise() function executes in NMI context when called
from MCE handler. Hence we will not be preempted or scheduled out since
we are in NMI context with MSR[EE]=0. Therefore, it is safe to remove
the preempt_disable()/preempt_enable() calls from here.
Remove it to avoid accessing preempt_count from real mode context.
Fixes: cc15ff3275 ("powerpc/mce: Avoid using irq_work_queue() in realmode")
Suggested-by: Mahesh Salgaonkar <mahesh@linux.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Shrikanth Hegde <sshegde@linux.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: Ritesh Harjani (IBM) <ritesh.list@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Sayali Patil <sayalip@linux.ibm.com>
[Maddy: Fixed the commit title]
Signed-off-by: Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@linux.ibm.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260513081413.222490-1-sayalip@linux.ibm.com
31467b2382