In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/ioapic: Handle allocation failures gracefully
Breno observed panics when using failslab under certain conditions during runtime:
can not alloc irq_pin_list (-1,0,20) Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC: failed to add irq-pin. Can not proceed
panic+0x4e9/0x590 mp_irqdomain_alloc+0x9ab/0xa80 irq_domain_alloc_irqs_locked+0x25d/0x8d0 __irq_domain_alloc_irqs+0x80/0x110 mp_map_pin_to_irq+0x645/0x890 acpi_register_gsi_ioapic+0xe6/0x150 hpet_open+0x313/0x480
That's a pointless panic which is a leftover of the historic IO/APIC code which panic'ed during early boot when the interrupt allocation failed.
The only place which might justify panic is the PIT/HPET timer_check() code which tries to figure out whether the timer interrupt is delivered through the IO/APIC. But that code does not require to handle interrupt allocation failures. If the interrupt cannot be allocated then timer delivery fails and it either panics due to that or falls back to legacy mode.
Cure this by removing the panic wrapper around __add_pin_to_irq_node() and making mp_irqdomain_alloc() aware of the failure condition and handle it as any other failure in this function gracefully.