scenario the parent is still valid (because we have a reference), but it has been device_del()'d which means its kobj->sd pointer is NULL'd via: device_del()->kobject_del()->sysfs_remove_dir() ...and then sysfs_create_dir() (without this fix) goes ahead and de-references parent_sd via sysfs_ns_type(): return (sd->s_flags & SYSFS_NS_TYPE_MASK) >> SYSFS_NS_TYPE_SHIFT; This scenario is being fixed in scsi/libsas, but if other subsystems present the same ordering the system need not immediately crash. Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman Cc: James Bottomley Signed-off-by: Dan Williams Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman `+