The Nasty Linux 6.3 Nouveau Driver Bug Appears To Have Been Figured Out

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Nasty Linux 6.3 Nouveau Driver Bug Appears To Have Been Figured Out

As a follow-up to the potentially nasty open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" driver bug in Linux 6.3, the issue is believed to have been figured out and a patch is pending that appears to address the issue...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Patch-For-Nouveau-Linux-6.3

[stormcrow]

To my sleep deprived brain, it reads like a classic race condition/thread resource conflict issue from the description.

[Vorpal]

A bit worrying that this has existed for a long time, but was very rare to trigger, if I understand things correctly. But how rare was very rare before?

[cynic]

A bit worrying that this has existed for a long time, but was very rare to trigger, if I understand things correctly. But how rare was very rare before?

if nobody noticed, it was rare enough!

[nexuslm]

That's why we need Rust.

[geearf]

Damn Dave also works on nouveau, is there anything GPU-related stuff this guy does not touch?

[oiaohm]

A bit worrying that this has existed for a long time, but was very rare to trigger, if I understand things correctly. But how rare was very rare before?

if nobody noticed, it was rare enough!

Not quite. Nouveau due to Nvidia cards not being able to be clocked up users have normally not remained using the driver. As long as it worked good enough to get distribution installed it has been good enough. Basically reason why the issue was not noticed sooner is limit usage.

[oiaohm]

Damn Dave also works on nouveau, is there anything GPU-related stuff this guy does not touch?

It is David Airlie Redhat job description to be the guy to deal with security faults that are not resolved quickly in all the open source graphical drivers in the kernel this is because he is "Linux Graphics maintainer" at redhat. Yes Karol Herbst job description is to take care of nouveau as he is Redhat Nouveau Maintainer. Yes there are other people who are maintainers of different GPU drivers at Redhat so David workload on maintaining is mostly light but he there for these major issues with stack of experience tracking them down quickly. Most of the patches by David are response to issues.

geearf not in Linux kernel GPU drivers would get you outside Dave area of employment. There is a different person at redhat who job it to help third party graphical drivers in the direction on mainline and being functional as DKMS modules.

Dave has a very large area of responsibility.

[archkde]

I'm surprised this was not caught by KTSAN/KCSAN.

[oiaohm]

I'm surprised this was not caught by KTSAN/KCSAN.

Yes this is a weakness those tools they don't really check into locking that are meant to be enforced by the GPU.