3.2.54-rc1 review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: Tyler Hicks <tyhicks(a)canonical.com&gt; commit 0868a5e150bc4c47e7a003367cd755811eb41e0b upstream. When the audit=1 kernel parameter is absent and auditd is not running, AUDIT_USER_AVC messages are being silently discarded. AUDIT_USER_AVC messages should be sent to userspace using printk(), as mentioned in the commit message of 4a4cd633 ("AUDIT: Optimise the audit-disabled case for discarding user messages"). When audit_enabled is 0, audit_receive_msg() discards all user messages except for AUDIT_USER_AVC messages. However, audit_log_common_recv_msg() refuses to allocate an audit_buffer if audit_enabled is 0. The fix is to special case AUDIT_USER_AVC messages in both functions. It looks like commit 50397bd1 ("[AUDIT] clean up audit_receive_msg()") introduced this bug. Signed-off-by: Tyler Hicks <tyhicks(a)canonical.com&gt; Cc: Al Viro <viro(a)zeniv.linux.org.uk&gt; Cc: Eric Paris <eparis(a)redhat.com&gt; Cc: linux-audit(a)redhat.com Acked-by: Kees Cook <keescook(a)chromium.org&gt; Signed-off-by: Richard Guy Briggs <rgb(a)redhat.com&gt; Signed-off-by: Eric Paris <eparis(a)redhat.com&gt; Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben(a)decadent.org.uk&gt; --- kernel/audit.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/kernel/audit.c +++ b/kernel/audit.c @@ -625,7 +625,7 @@ static int audit_log_common_recv_msg(str char *ctx = NULL; u32 len; - if (!audit_enabled) { + if (!audit_enabled && msg_type != AUDIT_USER_AVC) { *ab = NULL; return rc; }