published November 12, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ALSA: pcm: Disable bottom softirqs as part of spin_lock_irq() on PREEMPT_RT
snd_pcm_group_lock_irq() acquires a spinlock_t and disables interrupts
via spin_lock_irq(). This also implicitly disables the handling of
softirqs such as TIMER_SOFTIRQ.
On PREEMPT_RT softirqs are preemptible and spin_lock_irq() does not
disable them. That means a timer can be invoked during spin_lock_irq()
on the same CPU. Due to synchronisations reasons local_bh_disable() has
a per-CPU lock named softirq_ctrl.lock which synchronizes individual
softirq against each other.
syz-bot managed to trigger a lockdep report where softirq_ctrl.lock is
acquired in hrtimer_cancel() in addition to hrtimer_run_softirq(). This
is a possible deadlock.
The softirq_ctrl.lock can not be made part of spin_lock_irq() as this
would lead to too much synchronisation against individual threads on the
system. To avoid the possible deadlock, softirqs must be manually
disabled before the lock is acquired.
Disable softirqs before the lock is acquired on PREEMPT_RT.