Tag Archives: linux bugs rcu

Verification Challenge 7: Heavy Modifications to Linux-Kernel Tree RCU

There was a time when I felt that Linux-kernel RCU was too low-level to possibly be the subject of a security exploit, but Rowhammer put paid to that naive notion. And it finally happened earlier this year. Now, I could … Continue reading

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Verification Challenge 7: Heavy Modifications to Linux-Kernel Tree RCU

There was a time when I felt that Linux-kernel RCU was too low-level to possibly be the subject of a security exploit, but Rowhammer put paid to that naive notion. And it finally happened earlier this year. Now, I could … Continue reading

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Stupid RCU Tricks: rcutorture Accidentally Catches an RCU Bug

With the Linux-kernel v4.13 merge window coming up, it is time to do at least a little heavy-duty testing of the patches destined for v4.14, which had been but lightly tested on my laptop. An overnight run on a larger … Continue reading

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Stupid RCU Tricks: rcutorture Catches an RCU Bug

My previous posting described an RCU bug that I might plausibly blame on falsehoods from firmware. The RCU bug in this post, alas, I can blame only on myself. In retrospect, things were going altogether too smoothly while I was … Continue reading

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Lies that firmware tells RCU

One of the complaints that real-time people have against some firmware is that it lies about its age, attempting to cover up cycle-stealing via SMIs by reprogramming the TSC. Some firmware goes farther and lies about the number of CPUs … Continue reading

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