I am getting more or less reproducible crashes from the CAPI subsystem
using the fcdsl driver:

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000010
 printing eip:
c39bbca4
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
Modules linked in: netconsole capi capifs 3c59x mii fcdsl kernelcapi uhci_hcd usbcore ide_cd cdrom
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<c39bbca4>]    Tainted: P      VLI
EFLAGS: 00010202   (2.6.16.11 #3)
EIP is at handle_minor_send+0x17a/0x241 [capi]
eax: c24abbc0   ebx: c0b4c980   ecx: 00000010   edx: 00000010
esi: c1679140   edi: c2783016   ebp: 0000c28d   esp: c0327e24
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process swapper (pid: 0, threadinfo=c0326000 task=c02e1300)
Stack: <0>000005b4 c1679180 00000000 c28d0000 c1ce04e0 c2f69654 c221604e c1679140
       c39bc19a 00000038 c20c0400 c075c560 c1f2f800 00000000 c01dc9b5 c1e96a40
       c075c560 c2ed64c0 c1e96a40 c01dcd3b c2fb94e8 c075c560 c0327f00 c1e96a40
Call Trace:
 [<c39bc19a>] capinc_tty_write+0xda/0xf3 [capi]
 [<c01dc9b5>] ppp_sync_push+0x52/0xfe
 [<c01dcd3b>] ppp_sync_send+0x1f5/0x204
 [<c01d9bc1>] ppp_push+0x3e/0x9c
 [<c01dacd4>] ppp_xmit_process+0x422/0x4cc
 [<c01daf3f>] ppp_start_xmit+0x1c1/0x1f6
 [<c0213ea5>] qdisc_restart+0xa7/0x135
 [<c020b112>] dev_queue_xmit+0xba/0x19e
 [<c0223f69>] ip_output+0x1eb/0x236
 [<c0220907>] ip_forward+0x1c1/0x21a
 [<c021fa6c>] ip_rcv+0x38e/0x3ea
 [<c020b4c2>] netif_receive_skb+0x166/0x195
 [<c020b55e>] process_backlog+0x6d/0xd2
 [<c020a30f>] net_rx_action+0x6a/0xff
 [<c0112909>] __do_softirq+0x35/0x7d
 [<c0112973>] do_softirq+0x22/0x26
 [<c0103a9d>] do_IRQ+0x1e/0x25
 [<c010255a>] common_interrupt+0x1a/0x20
 [<c01013c5>] default_idle+0x2b/0x53
 [<c0101426>] cpu_idle+0x39/0x4e
 [<c0328386>] start_kernel+0x20b/0x20d
Code: c0 e8 b3 b6 77 fc 85 c0 75 10 68 d8 c8 9b c3 e8 82 3d 75 fc 8b 43 60 5a eb 50 8d 56 50 c7 00 00 00 00 00 66 89 68 04 eb 02 89
ca <8b> 0a 85 c9 75 f8 89 02 89 da ff 46 54 8b 46 10 e8 30 79 fd ff
 <0>Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt

That oops took me to the "ackqueue" implementation in capi.c.  The crash
occured in capincci_add_ack() (auto-inlined by the compiler).

I read the code a bit and finally decided to replace the custom linked list
implementation (struct capiminor->ackqueue) by a struct list_head.  That
did not solve the crash, but produced the following interresting oops:

Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 00200200
 printing eip:
c39bb1f5
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0002 [#1]
Modules linked in: netconsole capi capifs 3c59x mii fcdsl kernelcapi uhci_hcd usbcore ide_cd cdrom
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<c39bb1f5>]    Tainted: P      VLI
EFLAGS: 00010246   (2.6.16.11 #3)
EIP is at capiminor_del_ack+0x18/0x49 [capi]
eax: 00200200   ebx: c18d41a0   ecx: c1385620   edx: 00100100
esi: 0000d147   edi: 00001103   ebp: 0000d147   esp: c1093f3c
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process events/0 (pid: 3, threadinfo=c1092000 task=c1089030)
Stack: <0>c2a17580 c18d41a0 c39bbd16 00000038 c18d41e0 00000000 d147c640 c29e0b68
       c29e0b90 00000212 c29e0b68 c39932b2 c29e0bb0 c10736a0 c0119ef0 c399326c
       c10736a8 c10736a0 c10736b0 c0119f93 c011a06e 00000001 00000000 00000000
Call Trace:
 [<c39bbd16>] handle_minor_send+0x1af/0x241 [capi]
 [<c39932b2>] recv_handler+0x46/0x5f [kernelcapi]
 [<c0119ef0>] run_workqueue+0x5e/0x8d
 [<c399326c>] recv_handler+0x0/0x5f [kernelcapi]
 [<c0119f93>] worker_thread+0x0/0x10b
 [<c011a06e>] worker_thread+0xdb/0x10b
 [<c010c998>] default_wake_function+0x0/0xc
 [<c011c399>] kthread+0x90/0xbc
 [<c011c309>] kthread+0x0/0xbc
 [<c0100a65>] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0xb
Code: 7e 02 89 ee 89 f0 5a f7 d0 c1 f8 1f 5b 21 f0 5e 5f 5d c3 56 53 8b 48 50 89 d6 89 c3 8b 11 eb 2f 66 39 71 08 75 25 8b 41 04 8b 11 <89> 10 89 42 04 c7 01 00 01 10 00 89 c8 c7 41 04 00 02 20 00 e8

The interresting part of it is the "virtual address 00200200", which is
LIST_POISON2.  I thought about some race condition, but as this is an UP
system, it leads to questions on how it can happen.  If we look at EFLAGS:
00010202, we see that interrupts are enabled at the time of the crash
(eflags & 0x200).

Finally, I don't understand all the capi code, but I think that
handle_minor_send() is racing somehow against capi_recv_message(), which
call both capiminor_del_ack().  So if an IRQ occurs in the middle of
capiminor_del_ack() and another instance of it is invoked, it leads to
linked list corruption.

I came up with the following patch.  With this, I could not reproduce the
crash anymore.  Clearly, this is not the correct fix for the issue.  As this
seems to be some locking issue, there might be more locking issues in that
code.  For example, doesn't the whole struct capiminor have to be locked
somehow?

Cc: Carsten Paeth <calle@calle.de>
Cc: Kai Germaschewski <kai.germaschewski@gmx.de>
Cc: Karsten Keil <kkeil@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>