Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tty: fix deadlock caused by calling printk() under tty_port->lock

pty_write() invokes kmalloc() which may invoke a normal printk() to print failure message. This can cause a deadlock in the scenario reported by syz-bot below:

CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 ---- ---- ---- lock(console_owner); lock(&port_lock_key); lock(&port->lock); lock(&port_lock_key); lock(&port->lock); lock(console_owner);

As commit dbdda842fe96 ("printk: Add console owner and waiter logic to load balance console writes") said, such deadlock can be prevented by using printk_deferred() in kmalloc() (which is invoked in the section guarded by the port->lock). But there are too many printk() on the kmalloc() path, and kmalloc() can be called from anywhere, so changing printk() to printk_deferred() is too complicated and inelegant.

Therefore, this patch chooses to specify __GFP_NOWARN to kmalloc(), so that printk() will not be called, and this deadlock problem can be avoided.

Syzbot reported the following lockdep error:

====================================================== WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected 5.4.143-00237-g08ccc19a-dirty #10 Not tainted ---------------------------------------------------…