From 88aed0422f39b22406f35f1e758cea25e7bbcfb5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Vinay Belgaumkar Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2026 11:16:24 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] perf: Fix null pointer access in is_include_guest_event() A typical module unload occurring event when there is an active perf connection leads to freeing of the pmu pointer. The call log is something like: .. __pmu_detach_event pmu_detach_event pmu_detach_events perf_pmu_unregister .. __pmu_detach_event() sets event->pmu to null. When the perf connection finally is closed, the following stack trace is observed: Oops: general protection fault, kernel NULL pointer dereference ... RIP: 0010:_free_event+0x3e/0x370 ... Call Trace: ... perf_event_release_kernel+0x260/0x2d0 perf_release+0x12/0x20 A call to mediated_pmu_unaccount_event() inside _free_event() is the root cause of this crash. Adding a check inside is_include_guest_event() ensures we don't accidentally access a null pmu ptr. In addition to this, we will now call mediated_pmu_unaccount_event() before clearing the pmu ptr so that nr_include_guest_events counts are maintained correctly. Fixes: eff95e170275 ("perf: Add APIs to create/release mediated guest vPMUs") Assisted-by: Claude:Claude-Sonnet-5 Signed-off-by: Vinay Belgaumkar Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Reviewed-by: Dapeng Mi Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260904181625.1394082-1-vinay.belgaumkar@intel.com --- kernel/events/core.c | 4 ++++ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+) diff --git a/kernel/events/core.c b/kernel/events/core.c index fe33fe15689d..db7b76d6b68a 100644 --- a/kernel/events/core.c +++ b/kernel/events/core.c @@ -6350,6 +6350,9 @@ static DEFINE_MUTEX(perf_mediated_pmu_mutex); /* !exclude_guest event of PMU with PERF_PMU_CAP_MEDIATED_VPMU */ static inline bool is_include_guest_event(struct perf_event *event) { + if (!event->pmu) + return false; + if ((event->pmu->capabilities & PERF_PMU_CAP_MEDIATED_VPMU) && !event->attr.exclude_guest) return true; @@ -13002,6 +13005,7 @@ static void __pmu_detach_event(struct pmu *pmu, struct perf_event *event, exclusive_event_destroy(event); module_put(pmu->module); + mediated_pmu_unaccount_event(event); event->pmu = NULL; /* force fault instead of UAF */ }