watchdog: skip checks when panic is in progress

This issue was found when an EFI pstore was configured for kdump logging
with the NMI hard lockup detector enabled.  The efi-pstore write operation
was slow, and with a large number of logs, the pstore dump callback within
kmsg_dump() took a long time.

This delay triggered the NMI watchdog, leading to a nested panic.  The
call flow demonstrates how the secondary panic caused an
emergency_restart() to be triggered before the initial pstore operation
could finish, leading to a failure to dump the logs:

  real panic() {
	kmsg_dump() {
		...
		pstore_dump() {
			start_dump();
			... // long time operation triggers NMI watchdog
			nmi panic() {
				...
				emergency_restart(); // pstore unfinished
			}
			...
			finish_dump(); // never reached
		}
	}
  }

Both watchdog_buddy_check_hardlockup() and watchdog_overflow_callback()
may trigger during a panic.  This can lead to recursive panic handling.

Add panic_in_progress() checks so watchdog activity is skipped once a
panic has begun.

This prevents recursive panic and keeps the panic path more reliable.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20250825022947.1596226-10-wangjinchao600@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jinchao Wang <wangjinchao600@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Yury Norov (NVIDIA) <yury.norov@gmail.com>
Cc: Anna Schumaker <anna.schumaker@oracle.com>
Cc: Baoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>
Cc: "Darrick J. Wong" <djwong@kernel.org>
Cc: Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com>
Cc: Doug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>
Cc: "Guilherme G. Piccoli" <gpiccoli@igalia.com>
Cc: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>
Cc: Joanthan Cameron <Jonathan.Cameron@huawei.com>
Cc: Joel Granados <joel.granados@kernel.org>
Cc: John Ogness <john.ogness@linutronix.de>
Cc: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Cc: Li Huafei <lihuafei1@huawei.com>
Cc: "Luck, Tony" <tony.luck@intel.com>
Cc: Luo Gengkun <luogengkun@huaweicloud.com>
Cc: Max Kellermann <max.kellermann@ionos.com>
Cc: Nam Cao <namcao@linutronix.de>
Cc: oushixiong <oushixiong@kylinos.cn>
Cc: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Qianqiang Liu <qianqiang.liu@163.com>
Cc: Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@chromium.org>
Cc: Sohil Mehta <sohil.mehta@intel.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleinxer <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Thomas Zimemrmann <tzimmermann@suse.de>
Cc: Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@linux.dev>
Cc: Ville Syrjala <ville.syrjala@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com>
Cc: Yicong Yang <yangyicong@hisilicon.com>
Cc: Yunhui Cui <cuiyunhui@bytedance.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/watchdog.c b/kernel/watchdog.c
index 5413aa85e8a4..5b62d1002783 100644
--- a/kernel/watchdog.c
+++ b/kernel/watchdog.c
@@ -752,6 +752,12 @@ static enum hrtimer_restart watchdog_timer_fn(struct hrtimer *hrtimer)
 	if (!watchdog_enabled)
 		return HRTIMER_NORESTART;
 
+	/*
+	 * pass the buddy check if a panic is in process
+	 */
+	if (panic_in_progress())
+		return HRTIMER_NORESTART;
+
 	watchdog_hardlockup_kick();
 
 	/* kick the softlockup detector */
diff --git a/kernel/watchdog_perf.c b/kernel/watchdog_perf.c
index 9c58f5b4381d..d3ca70e3c256 100644
--- a/kernel/watchdog_perf.c
+++ b/kernel/watchdog_perf.c
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 
 #define pr_fmt(fmt) "NMI watchdog: " fmt
 
+#include <linux/panic.h>
 #include <linux/nmi.h>
 #include <linux/atomic.h>
 #include <linux/module.h>
@@ -108,6 +109,9 @@ static void watchdog_overflow_callback(struct perf_event *event,
 	/* Ensure the watchdog never gets throttled */
 	event->hw.interrupts = 0;
 
+	if (panic_in_progress())
+		return;
+
 	if (!watchdog_check_timestamp())
 		return;