SLUB_DEBUG creates several files under /sys/kernel/slab/<cache>/ that can
be read to check if the respective debugging options are enabled for given
cache. Some options, namely sanity_checks, trace, and failslab can be
also enabled and disabled at runtime by writing into the files.
The runtime toggling is racy. Some options disable __CMPXCHG_DOUBLE when
enabled, which means that in case of concurrent allocations, some can
still use __CMPXCHG_DOUBLE and some not, leading to potential corruption.
The s->flags field is also not updated or checked atomically. The
simplest solution is to remove the runtime toggling. The extended
slub_debug boot parameter syntax introduced by earlier patch should allow
to fine-tune the debugging configuration during boot with same
granularity.
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Acked-by: Roman Gushchin <guro@fb.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Vijayanand Jitta <vjitta@codeaurora.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200610163135.17364-5-vbabka@suse.cz
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
SLUB_DEBUG creates several files under /sys/kernel/slab/<cache>/ that can
be read to check if the respective debugging options are enabled for given
cache. The options can be also toggled at runtime by writing into the
files. Some of those, namely red_zone, poison, and store_user can be
toggled only when no objects yet exist in the cache.
Vijayanand reports [1] that there is a problem with freelist randomization
if changing the debugging option's state results in different number of
objects per page, and the random sequence cache needs thus needs to be
recomputed.
However, another problem is that the check for "no objects yet exist in
the cache" is racy, as noted by Jann [2] and fixing that would add
overhead or otherwise complicate the allocation/freeing paths. Thus it
would be much simpler just to remove the runtime toggling support. The
documentation describes it's "In case you forgot to enable debugging on
the kernel command line", but the neccessity of having no objects limits
its usefulness anyway for many caches.
Vijayanand describes an use case [3] where debugging is enabled for all
but zram caches for memory overhead reasons, and using the runtime toggles
was the only way to achieve such configuration. After the previous patch
it's now possible to do that directly from the kernel boot option, so we
can remove the dangerous runtime toggles by making the /sys attribute
files read-only.
While updating it, also improve the documentation of the debugging /sys files.
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1580379523-32272-1-git-send-email-vjitta@codeaurora.org
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/r/CAG48ez31PP--h6_FzVyfJ4H86QYczAFPdxtJHUEEan+7VJETAQ@mail.gmail.com
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/r/1383cd32-1ddc-4dac-b5f8-9c42282fa81c@codeaurora.org
Reported-by: Vijayanand Jitta <vjitta@codeaurora.org>
Reported-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Acked-by: Roman Gushchin <guro@fb.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200610163135.17364-3-vbabka@suse.cz
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
sphinx emits warning
WARNING: Inline emphasis start-string without end-string.
This is caused by a missing colon.
Add missing colon, clearing shpinx build warning.
Signed-off-by: Tobin C. Harding <tobin@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
There is a minor typo in SLUB documentation.
Fix typo.
Signed-off-by: Tobin C. Harding <tobin@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
