The 'max_part' parameter controls the number of maximum partition
a brd device can have. However if a user specifies very large
value it would exceed the limitation of device minor number and
can cause a kernel panic (or, at least, produce invalid device
nodes in some cases).
On my desktop system, following command kills the kernel. On qemu,
it triggers similar oops but the kernel was alive:
$ sudo modprobe brd max_part=100000
BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000058
IP: [<ffffffff81110a9a>] sysfs_create_dir+0x2d/0xae
PGD 7af1067 PUD 7b19067 PMD 0
Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
last sysfs file:
CPU 0
Modules linked in: brd(+)