The race was introduced while development of linux-3.11 by
e8437d7e and
e9975fde

.
Originally it was found and reproduced on linux-3.12.15 and
linux-3.12.15-rt25, by sending 500 byte blocks with 115kbaud to the
target uart in a loop with 100 milliseconds delay.

In short:
 1. The consumer flush_to_ldisc is on to remove the head tty_buffer.
 2. The producer adds a number of bytes, so that a new tty_buffer must
	be allocated and added by __tty_buffer_request_room.
 3. The consumer removes the head tty_buffer element, without handling
	newly committed data.

Detailed example:
 * Initial buffer:
   * Head, Tail -> 0: used=250; commit=250; read=240; next=NULL
 * Consumer: ''flush_to_ldisc''
   * consumed 10 Byte
   * buffer:
     * Head, Tail -> 0: used=250; commit=250; read=250; next=NULL
{{{
		count = head->commit - head->read;	// count = 0
		if (!count) {				// enter
			// INTERRUPTED BY PRODUCER ->
			if (head->next == NULL)
				break;
			buf->head = head->next;
			tty_buffer_free(port, head);
			continue;
		}
}}}
 * Producer: tty_insert_flip_... 10 bytes + tty_flip_buffer_push
   * buffer:
     * Head, Tail -> 0: used=250; commit=250; read=250; next=NULL
   * added 6 bytes: head-element filled to maximum.
     * buffer:
       * Head, Tail -> 0: used=256; commit=250; read=250; next=NULL
   * added 4 bytes: __tty_buffer_request_room is called
     * buffer:
       * Head -> 0: used=256; commit=256; read=250; next=1
       * Tail -> 1: used=4; commit=0; read=250 next=NULL
   * push (tty_flip_buffer_push)
     * buffer:
       * Head -> 0: used=256; commit=256; read=250; next=1
       * Tail -> 1: used=4; commit=4; read=250 next=NULL
 * Consumer
{{{
		count = head->commit - head->read;
		if (!count) {
			// INTERRUPTED BY PRODUCER <-
			if (head->next == NULL)		// -> no break
				break;
			buf->head = head->next;
			tty_buffer_free(port, head);
			// ERROR: tty_buffer head freed -> 6 bytes lost
			continue;
		}
}}}

This patch reintroduces a spin_lock to protect this case. Perhaps later
a lock-less solution could be found.

Signed-off-by: Manfred Schlaegl <manfred.schlaegl@gmx.at>
Cc: stable <stable@vger.kernel.org> # 3.11
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>