Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

s390/pai: Support CPU hotplug for PMU PAI

The command 'perf stat -e pai_crypto/CRYPTO_ALL/ -- <command>' crashes the kernel when CPUs are hotplug added during that run.

Root cause is the missing allocation of per-CPU data structures for that new CPU. The allocation is dynamic and the first event that has task context creates such a structure for each online CPU. This is not sufficient. CPUs may be offline during event creation and can be set online during the perf run time. For example commands

echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

perf stat -e cycles -i -- stress-ng -t10s --matrix X

sleep 1

echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

Currently without a CPU hotplug handler, that new CPU has no per-CPU data infrastructure. The scheduler runs PMU call back function pai_add() to install the PMU support for that CPU before the task is being scheduled on that new CPU. In pai_add() instructions

mp = this_cpu_ptr(pai_root[idx].mapptr);
cpump = mp->mapptr;

return a NULL pointer and the result is a kernel panic as variable cpump is used inside that function.

Add CPU hotplug support for CPU add and delete and create the necessary per-CPU data infrastructure during CPU hotplug add processing. Same for CPU hotplug remove. This is done when the CPU is offline to ensure the data structures are available when CPU is made online and tasks are scheduled on it.

[[email protected]: fixup error path in pai_init()]

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · updated 2026-09-28 · vex