fix serial buffer memory leak

Patch c5c34d4862e18ef07c1276d233507f540fb5a532 (tty: flush flip buffer on
ldisc input queue flush) introduces a race condition which can lead to memory
leaks.

The problem can be triggered when tcflush() is called when data are being
pushed to the line discipline driver by flush_to_ldisc().

flush_to_ldisc() releases tty->buf.lock when calling the line discipline
receive_buf function. At that poing tty_buffer_flush() kicks in and sets both
tty->buf.head and tty->buf.tail to NULL. When flush_to_ldisc() finishes, it
restores tty->buf.head but doesn't touch tty->buf.tail. This corrups the
buffer queue, and the next call to tty_buffer_request_room() will allocate a
new buffer and overwrite tty->buf.head. The previous buffer is then lost
forever without being released.

(Thanks to Laurent for the above text, for finding, disgnosing and reporting
the bug)

- Use tty->flags bits for the flush status.

- Wait for the flag to clear again before returning

- Fix the doc error noted

- Fix flush of empty queue leaving stale flushpending

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: cleanup]
Signed-off-by: Alan Cox <alan@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Paul Fulghum <paulkf@microgate.com>
Cc: Laurent Pinchart <laurentp@cse-semaphore.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

2 files changed, 52 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/char/tty_io.c b/drivers/char/tty_io.c
index de37ebc..51ea93c 100644
--- a/drivers/char/tty_io.c
+++ b/drivers/char/tty_io.c
@@ -369,25 +369,54 @@ static void tty_buffer_free(struct tty_struct *tty, struct tty_buffer *b)
 }
 
 /**
- *	tty_buffer_flush		-	flush full tty buffers
+ *	__tty_buffer_flush		-	flush full tty buffers
  *	@tty: tty to flush
  *
- *	flush all the buffers containing receive data
+ *	flush all the buffers containing receive data. Caller must
+ *	hold the buffer lock and must have ensured no parallel flush to
+ *	ldisc is running.
  *
- *	Locking: none
+ *	Locking: Caller must hold tty->buf.lock
  */
 
-static void tty_buffer_flush(struct tty_struct *tty)
+static void __tty_buffer_flush(struct tty_struct *tty)
 {
 	struct tty_buffer *thead;
-	unsigned long flags;
 
-	spin_lock_irqsave(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
 	while((thead = tty->buf.head) != NULL) {
 		tty->buf.head = thead->next;
 		tty_buffer_free(tty, thead);
 	}
 	tty->buf.tail = NULL;
+}
+
+/**
+ *	tty_buffer_flush		-	flush full tty buffers
+ *	@tty: tty to flush
+ *
+ *	flush all the buffers containing receive data. If the buffer is
+ *	being processed by flush_to_ldisc then we defer the processing
+ *	to that function
+ *
+ *	Locking: none
+ */
+
+static void tty_buffer_flush(struct tty_struct *tty)
+{
+	unsigned long flags;
+	spin_lock_irqsave(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
+
+	/* If the data is being pushed to the tty layer then we can't
+	   process it here. Instead set a flag and the flush_to_ldisc
+	   path will process the flush request before it exits */
+	if (test_bit(TTY_FLUSHING, &tty->flags)) {
+		set_bit(TTY_FLUSHPENDING, &tty->flags);
+		spin_unlock_irqrestore(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
+		wait_event(tty->read_wait,
+				test_bit(TTY_FLUSHPENDING, &tty->flags) == 0);
+		return;
+	} else
+		__tty_buffer_flush(tty);
 	spin_unlock_irqrestore(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
 }
 
@@ -3594,6 +3623,7 @@ static void flush_to_ldisc(struct work_struct *work)
 		return;
 
 	spin_lock_irqsave(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
+	set_bit(TTY_FLUSHING, &tty->flags);	/* So we know a flush is running */
 	head = tty->buf.head;
 	if (head != NULL) {
 		tty->buf.head = NULL;
@@ -3607,6 +3637,11 @@ static void flush_to_ldisc(struct work_struct *work)
 				tty_buffer_free(tty, tbuf);
 				continue;
 			}
+			/* Ldisc or user is trying to flush the buffers
+			   we are feeding to the ldisc, stop feeding the
+			   line discipline as we want to empty the queue */
+			if (test_bit(TTY_FLUSHPENDING, &tty->flags))
+				break;
 			if (!tty->receive_room) {
 				schedule_delayed_work(&tty->buf.work, 1);
 				break;
@@ -3620,8 +3655,17 @@ static void flush_to_ldisc(struct work_struct *work)
 			disc->receive_buf(tty, char_buf, flag_buf, count);
 			spin_lock_irqsave(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
 		}
+		/* Restore the queue head */
 		tty->buf.head = head;
 	}
+	/* We may have a deferred request to flush the input buffer,
+	   if so pull the chain under the lock and empty the queue */
+	if (test_bit(TTY_FLUSHPENDING, &tty->flags)) {
+		__tty_buffer_flush(tty);
+		clear_bit(TTY_FLUSHPENDING, &tty->flags);
+		wake_up(&tty->read_wait);
+	}
+	clear_bit(TTY_FLUSHING, &tty->flags);
 	spin_unlock_irqrestore(&tty->buf.lock, flags);
 
 	tty_ldisc_deref(disc);
diff --git a/include/linux/tty.h b/include/linux/tty.h
index 691a174..6570719 100644
--- a/include/linux/tty.h
+++ b/include/linux/tty.h
@@ -274,6 +274,8 @@ struct tty_struct {
 #define TTY_PTY_LOCK 		16	/* pty private */
 #define TTY_NO_WRITE_SPLIT 	17	/* Preserve write boundaries to driver */
 #define TTY_HUPPED 		18	/* Post driver->hangup() */
+#define TTY_FLUSHING		19	/* Flushing to ldisc in progress */
+#define TTY_FLUSHPENDING	20	/* Queued buffer flush pending */
 
 #define TTY_WRITE_FLUSH(tty) tty_write_flush((tty))