ovpn_peer_keepalive_send() passes its peer reference to
ovpn_xmit_special(), which ultimately drops it. The keepalive scheduler
currently queues the work first and takes the reference only after
schedule_work() reports that the work was queued.
Once schedule_work() queues the item, another CPU may run the worker
before the caller gets to ovpn_peer_hold(). In that case the worker can
consume a reference that was not acquired for it, corrupting the peer
lifetime accounting.
Take the peer reference before queueing the work and drop it again when
the work was already pending.