Affected: Linux

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

printk: Postpone kthread startup

There have been various bug reports related to SMP systems hanging on boot. The reports vary but seem to have some overlap with regard to missed IPI's during SMP setup. The reports also show that reverting NBCON console usage allows the bugs to disappear.

The NBCON kthreads for console printing are started very early during boot using early_initcall(). Since these kthreads are asynchronously enabling/disabling interrupts during early boot, they may be interfering with early SMP setup on some hardware platforms.

Starting the console printing kthreads later has shown to avoid the hanging on systems that could previously reproduce the issue.

Postpone kthread starting until after all arch initcalls have completed.