Andrea Righi reported a case where an exiting task can race against
ksmd::scan_get_next_rmap_item (http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/6/1/742) easily
triggering a NULL pointer dereference in ksmd.
ksm_scan.mm_slot == &ksm_mm_head with only one registered mm
CPU 1 (__ksm_exit)		CPU 2 (scan_get_next_rmap_item)
 				list_empty() is false
lock				slot == &ksm_mm_head
list_del(slot->mm_list)
(list now empty)
unlock
				lock
				slot = list_entry(slot->mm_list.next)
				(list is empty, so slot is still ksm_mm_head)
				unlock
				slot->mm == NULL ... Oops
Close this race by revalidating that the new slot is not simply the list
head again.
Andrea's test case:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#define BUFSIZE getpagesize()
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	void *ptr;
	if (posix_memalign(&ptr, getpagesize(), BUFSIZE) < 0) {
		perror("posix_memalign");
		exit(1);
	}
	if (madvise(ptr, BUFSIZE, MADV_MERGEABLE) < 0) {
		perror("madvise");
		exit(1);
	}
	*(char *)NULL = 0;
	return 0;
}
Reported-by: Andrea Righi <andrea@betterlinux.com>
Tested-by: Andrea Righi <andrea@betterlinux.com>
Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Chris Wright <chrisw@sous-sol.org>
Cc: <stable@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
                slot = list_entry(slot->mm_list.next, struct mm_slot, mm_list);
                ksm_scan.mm_slot = slot;
                spin_unlock(&ksm_mmlist_lock);
+               /*
+                * Although we tested list_empty() above, a racing __ksm_exit
+                * of the last mm on the list may have removed it since then.
+                */
+               if (slot == &ksm_mm_head)
+                       return NULL;
 next_mm:
                ksm_scan.address = 0;
                ksm_scan.rmap_list = &slot->rmap_list;