Linux Kernel: Probes Subsystem Fixes
Linus Torvalds merged critical fixes for the kernel probes subsystem, addressing race conditions in kprobes, fprobe cleanup issues, and test infrastructure problems.
Duration: PT1M58S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from Linux Kernel.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: Linux Kernel
- Published: 2026-05-13T10:02:53Z
- Audio duration: PT1M58S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
Good morning, this is your Linux Kernel briefing for May 13th, 2026.
Today we have one significant merge from Linus Torvalds bringing in probes fixes for version 7.1 release candidate 3. This pull from Masami Hiramatsu addresses three critical issues in the kernel's probing infrastructure.
The first fix resolves a problem where kprobes were incorrectly handling non-symbol addresses in the blacklist function. When modules used the "__kprobes" attribute, wrong entries were being added because ftrace places NOPs in the kprobes text section. The solution adds "notrace" attributes to __kprobes functions to…
The second fix targets the test infrastructure itself. The kprobes test program now properly clears all kprobes between test runs, which is essential since Kunit tests can execute multiple times and leftover probes could interfere with subsequent runs.
The third and most critical fix addresses a race condition in fprobe unregistration. The unregister_fprobe function now properly waits for RCU grace periods before cleanup, since the fprobe data structure uses hlist_del_rcu for removal. This fix includes an async variant for callers like eBPF that handle their own…
The changes span five…
Nearby episodes from Linux Kernel
- VFS Fixes and Performance Tool Updates
- Critical Security and Stability Fixes in RC4
- Graphics and Core System Fixes
- KVM Virtualization Fixes and Live Update Patches
- KUnit Testing Fixes and Critical Task Exit Bug
- Bug Fixes and Driver Updates
- Networking and Audio Fixes for RC3
- Critical Subsystem Fixes for RC3