From cfe54f4591e675cedf2c0d25287ff4c0a2e0cb9d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Breno Leitao Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 02:55:44 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] kthread: Warn if mm_struct lacks user_ns in kthread_use_mm() Add a WARN_ON_ONCE() check to detect mm_struct instances that are missing user_ns initialization when passed to kthread_use_mm(). When a kthread adopts an mm via kthread_use_mm(), LSM hooks and capability checks may access current->mm->user_ns for credential validation. If user_ns is NULL, this leads to a NULL pointer dereference crash. This was observed with efi_mm on arm64, where commit a5baf582f4c0 ("arm64/efi: Call EFI runtime services without disabling preemption") introduced kthread_use_mm(&efi_mm), but efi_mm lacked user_ns initialization, causing crashes during /proc access. Adding this warning helps catch similar bugs early during development rather than waiting for hard-to-debug NULL pointer crashes in production. Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao Acked-by: Rik van Riel Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel --- kernel/kthread.c | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) diff --git a/kernel/kthread.c b/kernel/kthread.c index 99a3808d086f0..39511dd2abc97 100644 --- a/kernel/kthread.c +++ b/kernel/kthread.c @@ -1599,6 +1599,7 @@ void kthread_use_mm(struct mm_struct *mm) WARN_ON_ONCE(!(tsk->flags & PF_KTHREAD)); WARN_ON_ONCE(tsk->mm); + WARN_ON_ONCE(!mm->user_ns); /* * It is possible for mm to be the same as tsk->active_mm, but -- 2.47.3