#1059616 "wc -l" gives "illegal instruction"

Package:
coreutils
Source:
coreutils
Description:
GNU core utilities
Submitter:
Date:
2025-06-13 18:43:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1059616#5
Date:
2023-12-29 09:52:44 UTC
From:
To:
When I run command wc -l, it gives “illegal instruction”.
I reinstalled the coreutils package:

$ wc -l
Illegal instruction

$ ls -l | wc -l
Illegal instruction

$ ls -l | wc -lw
      4      29

$ wc test.txt
10  8 18 test.txt

$ cat test.txt | wc -mwl
     10       8      18

$ wc -l test.txt
Illegal instruction

$ cat test.txt | wc -l
Illegal instruction


Linux 6.1.0-16-amd64, Debian 6.1.67-1
#1059616#10
Date:
2023-12-29 15:38:32 UTC
From:
To:
These upstream patches should address the issue:

https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/commit/91a74d361.patch
https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/commit/7814596fa.patch
#1059616#15
Date:
2024-05-21 10:56:47 UTC
From:
To:
I can confirm this for at least one of my machines.

I can confirm that those two patches fix the issue for me on Debian
bookworm. They don't apply cleanly to the sources in bookworm, but the
result is still fine. I'll attach the new quilt patch file.

Since I am not using Debian's default kernel and the issue only happens
on one of my machines, I won't raise the severity, but if this also
happens with a Debian kernel, this would be an RC bug for me and warrant
a bookworm point release upload.

Greetings
Marc
#1059616#18
Date:
2024-05-21 10:56:47 UTC
From:
To:
I can confirm this for at least one of my machines.

I can confirm that those two patches fix the issue for me on Debian
bookworm. They don't apply cleanly to the sources in bookworm, but the
result is still fine. I'll attach the new quilt patch file.

Since I am not using Debian's default kernel and the issue only happens
on one of my machines, I won't raise the severity, but if this also
happens with a Debian kernel, this would be an RC bug for me and warrant
a bookworm point release upload.

Greetings
Marc
#1059616#23
Date:
2025-06-13 18:22:34 UTC
From:
To:
Powered by Anonymousemail

It happens on stock kernel 6.1.0-37-amd64. It currently prevents ca-certificates from being configured. Can't downgrade ca-certificates either because it also SIGILLs when (re-)configuring the older version.

Journal shows wc being the culprit.
#1059616#28
Date:
2025-06-13 18:40:28 UTC
From:
To:
Powered by Anonymousemail

Addendum: It only happens with gather_data_sampling=force, which is necessary for security on CPUs with a broken AVX implementation.

I'd still consider the bug high severity since it should be possible to turn on mitigations without breaking coreutils.