Commit Graph

107 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Andrew Shewmaker
4eeab4f558 mm: replace hardcoded 3% with admin_reserve_pages knob
Add an admin_reserve_kbytes knob to allow admins to change the hardcoded
memory reserve to something other than 3%, which may be multiple
gigabytes on large memory systems.  Only about 8MB is necessary to
enable recovery in the default mode, and only a few hundred MB are
required even when overcommit is disabled.

This affects OVERCOMMIT_GUESS and OVERCOMMIT_NEVER.

admin_reserve_kbytes is initialized to min(3% free pages, 8MB)

I arrived at 8MB by summing the RSS of sshd or login, bash, and top.

Please see first patch in this series for full background, motivation,
testing, and full changelog.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make init_admin_reserve() static]
Signed-off-by: Andrew Shewmaker <agshew@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-04-29 15:54:36 -07:00
Andrew Shewmaker
c9b1d0981f mm: limit growth of 3% hardcoded other user reserve
Add user_reserve_kbytes knob.

Limit the growth of the memory reserved for other user processes to
min(3% current process size, user_reserve_pages).  Only about 8MB is
necessary to enable recovery in the default mode, and only a few hundred
MB are required even when overcommit is disabled.

user_reserve_pages defaults to min(3% free pages, 128MB)

I arrived at 128MB by taking the max VSZ of sshd, login, bash, and top ...
then adding the RSS of each.

This only affects OVERCOMMIT_NEVER mode.

Background

1. user reserve

__vm_enough_memory reserves a hardcoded 3% of the current process size for
other applications when overcommit is disabled.  This was done so that a
user could recover if they launched a memory hogging process.  Without the
reserve, a user would easily run into a message such as:

bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory

2. admin reserve

Additionally, a hardcoded 3% of free memory is reserved for root in both
overcommit 'guess' and 'never' modes.  This was intended to prevent a
scenario where root-cant-log-in and perform recovery operations.

Note that this reserve shrinks, and doesn't guarantee a useful reserve.

Motivation

The two hardcoded memory reserves should be updated to account for current
memory sizes.

Also, the admin reserve would be more useful if it didn't shrink too much.

When the current code was originally written, 1GB was considered
"enterprise".  Now the 3% reserve can grow to multiple GB on large memory
systems, and it only needs to be a few hundred MB at most to enable a user
or admin to recover a system with an unwanted memory hogging process.

I've found that reducing these reserves is especially beneficial for a
specific type of application load:

 * single application system
 * one or few processes (e.g. one per core)
 * allocating all available memory
 * not initializing every page immediately
 * long running

I've run scientific clusters with this sort of load.  A long running job
sometimes failed many hours (weeks of CPU time) into a calculation.  They
weren't initializing all of their memory immediately, and they weren't
using calloc, so I put systems into overcommit 'never' mode.  These
clusters run diskless and have no swap.

However, with the current reserves, a user wishing to allocate as much
memory as possible to one process may be prevented from using, for
example, almost 2GB out of 32GB.

The effect is less, but still significant when a user starts a job with
one process per core.  I have repeatedly seen a set of processes
requesting the same amount of memory fail because one of them could not
allocate the amount of memory a user would expect to be able to allocate.
For example, Message Passing Interfce (MPI) processes, one per core.  And
it is similar for other parallel programming frameworks.

Changing this reserve code will make the overcommit never mode more useful
by allowing applications to allocate nearly all of the available memory.

Also, the new admin_reserve_kbytes will be safer than the current behavior
since the hardcoded 3% of available memory reserve can shrink to something
useless in the case where applications have grabbed all available memory.

Risks

* "bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory"

  The downside of the first patch-- which creates a tunable user reserve
  that is only used in overcommit 'never' mode--is that an admin can set
  it so low that a user may not be able to kill their process, even if
  they already have a shell prompt.

  Of course, a user can get in the same predicament with the current 3%
  reserve--they just have to launch processes until 3% becomes negligible.

* root-cant-log-in problem

  The second patch, adding the tunable rootuser_reserve_pages, allows
  the admin to shoot themselves in the foot by setting it too small.  They
  can easily get the system into a state where root-can't-log-in.

  However, the new admin_reserve_kbytes will be safer than the current
  behavior since the hardcoded 3% of available memory reserve can shrink
  to something useless in the case where applications have grabbed all
  available memory.

Alternatives

 * Memory cgroups provide a more flexible way to limit application memory.

   Not everyone wants to set up cgroups or deal with their overhead.

 * We could create a fourth overcommit mode which provides smaller reserves.

   The size of useful reserves may be drastically different depending
   on the whether the system is embedded or enterprise.

 * Force users to initialize all of their memory or use calloc.

   Some users don't want/expect the system to overcommit when they malloc.
   Overcommit 'never' mode is for this scenario, and it should work well.

The new user and admin reserve tunables are simple to use, with low
overhead compared to cgroups.  The patches preserve current behavior where
3% of memory is less than 128MB, except that the admin reserve doesn't
shrink to an unusable size under pressure.  The code allows admins to tune
for embedded and enterprise usage.

FAQ

 * How is the root-cant-login problem addressed?
   What happens if admin_reserve_pages is set to 0?

   Root is free to shoot themselves in the foot by setting
   admin_reserve_kbytes too low.

   On x86_64, the minimum useful reserve is:
     8MB for overcommit 'guess'
   128MB for overcommit 'never'

   admin_reserve_pages defaults to min(3% free memory, 8MB)

   So, anyone switching to 'never' mode needs to adjust
   admin_reserve_pages.

 * How do you calculate a minimum useful reserve?

   A user or the admin needs enough memory to login and perform
   recovery operations, which includes, at a minimum:

   sshd or login + bash (or some other shell) + top (or ps, kill, etc.)

   For overcommit 'guess', we can sum resident set sizes (RSS)
   because we only need enough memory to handle what the recovery
   programs will typically use. On x86_64 this is about 8MB.

   For overcommit 'never', we can take the max of their virtual sizes (VSZ)
   and add the sum of their RSS. We use VSZ instead of RSS because mode
   forces us to ensure we can fulfill all of the requested memory allocations--
   even if the programs only use a fraction of what they ask for.
   On x86_64 this is about 128MB.

   When swap is enabled, reserves are useful even when they are as
   small as 10MB, regardless of overcommit mode.

   When both swap and overcommit are disabled, then the admin should
   tune the reserves higher to be absolutley safe. Over 230MB each
   was safest in my testing.

 * What happens if user_reserve_pages is set to 0?

   Note, this only affects overcomitt 'never' mode.

   Then a user will be able to allocate all available memory minus
   admin_reserve_kbytes.

   However, they will easily see a message such as:

   "bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory"

   And they won't be able to recover/kill their application.
   The admin should be able to recover the system if
   admin_reserve_kbytes is set appropriately.

 * What's the difference between overcommit 'guess' and 'never'?

   "Guess" allows an allocation if there are enough free + reclaimable
   pages. It has a hardcoded 3% of free pages reserved for root.

   "Never" allows an allocation if there is enough swap + a configurable
   percentage (default is 50) of physical RAM. It has a hardcoded 3% of
   free pages reserved for root, like "Guess" mode. It also has a
   hardcoded 3% of the current process size reserved for additional
   applications.

 * Why is overcommit 'guess' not suitable even when an app eventually
   writes to every page? It takes free pages, file pages, available
   swap pages, reclaimable slab pages into consideration. In other words,
   these are all pages available, then why isn't overcommit suitable?

   Because it only looks at the present state of the system. It
   does not take into account the memory that other applications have
   malloced, but haven't initialized yet. It overcommits the system.

Test Summary

There was little change in behavior in the default overcommit 'guess'
mode with swap enabled before and after the patch. This was expected.

Systems run most predictably (i.e. no oom kills) in overcommit 'never'
mode with swap enabled. This also allowed the most memory to be allocated
to a user application.

Overcommit 'guess' mode without swap is a bad idea. It is easy to
crash the system. None of the other tested combinations crashed.
This matches my experience on the Roadrunner supercomputer.

Without the tunable user reserve, a system in overcommit 'never' mode
and without swap does not allow the admin to recover, although the
admin can.

With the new tunable reserves, a system in overcommit 'never' mode
and without swap can be configured to:

1. maximize user-allocatable memory, running close to the edge of
recoverability

2. maximize recoverability, sacrificing allocatable memory to
ensure that a user cannot take down a system

Test Description

Fedora 18 VM - 4 x86_64 cores, 5725MB RAM, 4GB Swap

System is booted into multiuser console mode, with unnecessary services
turned off. Caches were dropped before each test.

Hogs are user memtester processes that attempt to allocate all free memory
as reported by /proc/meminfo

In overcommit 'never' mode, memory_ratio=100

Test Results

3.9.0-rc1-mm1

Overcommit | Swap | Hogs | MB Got/Wanted | OOMs | User Recovery | Admin Recovery
----------   ----   ----   -------------   ----   -------------   --------------
guess        yes    1      5432/5432       no     yes             yes
guess        yes    4      5444/5444       1      yes             yes
guess        no     1      5302/5449       no     yes             yes
guess        no     4      -               crash  no              no

never        yes    1      5460/5460       1      yes             yes
never        yes    4      5460/5460       1      yes             yes
never        no     1      5218/5432       no     no              yes
never        no     4      5203/5448       no     no              yes

3.9.0-rc1-mm1-tunablereserves

User and Admin Recovery show their respective reserves, if applicable.

Overcommit | Swap | Hogs | MB Got/Wanted | OOMs | User Recovery | Admin Recovery
----------   ----   ----   -------------   ----   -------------   --------------
guess        yes    1      5419/5419       no     - yes           8MB yes
guess        yes    4      5436/5436       1      - yes           8MB yes
guess        no     1      5440/5440       *      - yes           8MB yes
guess        no     4      -               crash  - no            8MB no

* process would successfully mlock, then the oom killer would pick it

never        yes    1      5446/5446       no     10MB yes        20MB yes
never        yes    4      5456/5456       no     10MB yes        20MB yes
never        no     1      5387/5429       no     128MB no        8MB barely
never        no     1      5323/5428       no     226MB barely    8MB barely
never        no     1      5323/5428       no     226MB barely    8MB barely

never        no     1      5359/5448       no     10MB no         10MB barely

never        no     1      5323/5428       no     0MB no          10MB barely
never        no     1      5332/5428       no     0MB no          50MB yes
never        no     1      5293/5429       no     0MB no          90MB yes

never        no     1      5001/5427       no     230MB yes       338MB yes
never        no     4*     4998/5424       no     230MB yes       338MB yes

* more memtesters were launched, able to allocate approximately another 100MB

Future Work

 - Test larger memory systems.

 - Test an embedded image.

 - Test other architectures.

 - Time malloc microbenchmarks.

 - Would it be useful to be able to set overcommit policy for
   each memory cgroup?

 - Some lines are slightly above 80 chars.
   Perhaps define a macro to convert between pages and kb?
   Other places in the kernel do this.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make init_user_reserve() static]
Signed-off-by: Andrew Shewmaker <agshew@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-04-29 15:54:36 -07:00
Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez
358e419f82 Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt: document /proc/sys/shmall
Signed-off-by: Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez <clopez@igalia.com>
Cc: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Cc: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
Cc: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Cc: Mitsuo Hayasaka <mitsuo.hayasaka.hu@hitachi.com>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-01-04 16:11:46 -08:00
Stanislav Kinsbursky
03f5956680 ipc: add sysctl to specify desired next object id
Add 3 new variables and sysctls to tune them (by one "next_id" variable
for messages, semaphores and shared memory respectively).  This variable
can be used to set desired id for next allocated IPC object.  By default
it's equal to -1 and old behaviour is preserved.  If this variable is
non-negative, then desired idr will be extracted from it and used as a
start value to search for free IDR slot.

Notes:

1) this patch doesn't guarantee that the new object will have desired
   id.  So it's up to user space how to handle new object with wrong id.

2) After a sucessful id allocation attempt, "next_id" will be set back
   to -1 (if it was non-negative).

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: checkpatch fixes]
Signed-off-by: Stanislav Kinsbursky <skinsbursky@parallels.com>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@canonical.com>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@parallels.com>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2013-01-04 16:11:45 -08:00
Oleg Nesterov
12a2b4b224 coredump: add support for %d=__get_dumpable() in core name
Some coredump handlers want to create a core file in a way compatible with
standard behavior.  Standard behavior with fs.suid_dumpable = 2 is to
create core file with uid=gid=0.  However, there was no way for coredump
handler to know that the process being dumped was suid'ed.

This patch adds the new %d specifier for format_corename() which simply
reports __get_dumpable(mm->flags), this is compatible with
/proc/sys/fs/suid_dumpable we already have.

Addresses https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=787135

Developed during a discussion with Denys Vlasenko.

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <vda.linux@googlemail.com>
Cc: Alex Kelly <alex.page.kelly@gmail.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
Cc: Cong Wang <amwang@redhat.com>
Cc: Jiri Moskovcak <jmoskovc@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-10-06 03:05:15 +09:00
Artem Bityutskiy
6601fac822 Documentation: fix the VM knobs descritpion WRT pdflush
The pdflush thread is long gone, however we still mention it incorrectly in the
kernel documentation. This patch fixes the situation.

Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2012-08-04 12:15:09 +04:00
Linus Torvalds
a0e881b7c1 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs
Pull second vfs pile from Al Viro:
 "The stuff in there: fsfreeze deadlock fixes by Jan (essentially, the
  deadlock reproduced by xfstests 068), symlink and hardlink restriction
  patches, plus assorted cleanups and fixes.

  Note that another fsfreeze deadlock (emergency thaw one) is *not*
  dealt with - the series by Fernando conflicts a lot with Jan's, breaks
  userland ABI (FIFREEZE semantics gets changed) and trades the deadlock
  for massive vfsmount leak; this is going to be handled next cycle.
  There probably will be another pull request, but that stuff won't be
  in it."

Fix up trivial conflicts due to unrelated changes next to each other in
drivers/{staging/gdm72xx/usb_boot.c, usb/gadget/storage_common.c}

* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs: (54 commits)
  delousing target_core_file a bit
  Documentation: Correct s_umount state for freeze_fs/unfreeze_fs
  fs: Remove old freezing mechanism
  ext2: Implement freezing
  btrfs: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  nilfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  ntfs: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  fuse: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  gfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  ocfs2: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  xfs: Convert to new freezing code
  ext4: Convert to new freezing mechanism
  fs: Protect write paths by sb_start_write - sb_end_write
  fs: Skip atime update on frozen filesystem
  fs: Add freezing handling to mnt_want_write() / mnt_drop_write()
  fs: Improve filesystem freezing handling
  switch the protection of percpu_counter list to spinlock
  nfsd: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  btrfs: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  fat: Push mnt_want_write() outside of i_mutex
  ...
2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
David Rientjes
de34d965a8 mm, oom: replace some information in tasklist dump
The number of ptes and swap entries are used in the oom killer's badness
heuristic, so they should be shown in the tasklist dump.

This patch adds those fields and replaces cpu and oom_adj values that are
currently emitted.  Cpu isn't interesting and oom_adj is deprecated and
will be removed later this year, the same information is already displayed
as oom_score_adj which is used internally.

At the same time, make the documentation a little more clear to state this
information is helpful to determine why the oom killer chose the task it
did to kill.

Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-31 18:42:42 -07:00
Wanpeng Li
3965c9ae47 mm: prepare for removal of obsolete /proc/sys/vm/nr_pdflush_threads
Since per-BDI flusher threads were introduced in 2.6, the pdflush
mechanism is not used any more.  But the old interface exported through
/proc/sys/vm/nr_pdflush_threads still exists and is obviously useless.

For back-compatibility, printk warning information and return 2 to notify
the users that the interface is removed.

Signed-off-by: Wanpeng Li <liwp@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-31 18:42:40 -07:00
Christian Ehrhardt
df858fa827 documentation: update how page-cluster affects swap I/O
Fix of the documentation of /proc/sys/vm/page-cluster to match the
behavior of the code and add some comments about what the tunable will
change in that behavior.

Signed-off-by: Christian Ehrhardt <ehrhardt@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-31 18:42:39 -07:00
Kees Cook
9520628e8c fs: make dumpable=2 require fully qualified path
When the suid_dumpable sysctl is set to "2", and there is no core dump
pipe defined in the core_pattern sysctl, a local user can cause core files
to be written to root-writable directories, potentially with
user-controlled content.

This means an admin can unknowningly reintroduce a variation of
CVE-2006-2451, allowing local users to gain root privileges.

  $ cat /proc/sys/fs/suid_dumpable
  2
  $ cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
  core
  $ ulimit -c unlimited
  $ cd /
  $ ls -l core
  ls: cannot access core: No such file or directory
  $ touch core
  touch: cannot touch `core': Permission denied
  $ OHAI="evil-string-here" ping localhost >/dev/null 2>&1 &
  $ pid=$!
  $ sleep 1
  $ kill -SEGV $pid
  $ ls -l core
  -rw------- 1 root kees 458752 Jun 21 11:35 core
  $ sudo strings core | grep evil
  OHAI=evil-string-here

While cron has been fixed to abort reading a file when there is any
parse error, there are still other sensitive directories that will read
any file present and skip unparsable lines.

Instead of introducing a suid_dumpable=3 mode and breaking all users of
mode 2, this only disables the unsafe portion of mode 2 (writing to disk
via relative path).  Most users of mode 2 (e.g.  Chrome OS) already use
a core dump pipe handler, so this change will not break them.  For the
situations where a pipe handler is not defined but mode 2 is still
active, crash dumps will only be written to fully qualified paths.  If a
relative path is defined (e.g.  the default "core" pattern), dump
attempts will trigger a printk yelling about the lack of a fully
qualified path.

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@linux.intel.com>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@canonical.com>
Cc: James Morris <james.l.morris@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-07-30 17:25:11 -07:00
Kees Cook
800179c9b8 fs: add link restrictions
This adds symlink and hardlink restrictions to the Linux VFS.

Symlinks:

A long-standing class of security issues is the symlink-based
time-of-check-time-of-use race, most commonly seen in world-writable
directories like /tmp. The common method of exploitation of this flaw
is to cross privilege boundaries when following a given symlink (i.e. a
root process follows a symlink belonging to another user). For a likely
incomplete list of hundreds of examples across the years, please see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=/tmp

The solution is to permit symlinks to only be followed when outside
a sticky world-writable directory, or when the uid of the symlink and
follower match, or when the directory owner matches the symlink's owner.

Some pointers to the history of earlier discussion that I could find:

 1996 Aug, Zygo Blaxell
  http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=87602167419830&w=2
 1996 Oct, Andrew Tridgell
  http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9610.2/0086.html
 1997 Dec, Albert D Cahalan
  http://lkml.org/lkml/1997/12/16/4
 2005 Feb, Lorenzo Hernández García-Hierro
  http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0502.0/1896.html
 2010 May, Kees Cook
  https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/5/30/144

Past objections and rebuttals could be summarized as:

 - Violates POSIX.
   - POSIX didn't consider this situation and it's not useful to follow
     a broken specification at the cost of security.
 - Might break unknown applications that use this feature.
   - Applications that break because of the change are easy to spot and
     fix. Applications that are vulnerable to symlink ToCToU by not having
     the change aren't. Additionally, no applications have yet been found
     that rely on this behavior.
 - Applications should just use mkstemp() or O_CREATE|O_EXCL.
   - True, but applications are not perfect, and new software is written
     all the time that makes these mistakes; blocking this flaw at the
     kernel is a single solution to the entire class of vulnerability.
 - This should live in the core VFS.
   - This should live in an LSM. (https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/5/31/135)
 - This should live in an LSM.
   - This should live in the core VFS. (https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/8/2/188)

Hardlinks:

On systems that have user-writable directories on the same partition
as system files, a long-standing class of security issues is the
hardlink-based time-of-check-time-of-use race, most commonly seen in
world-writable directories like /tmp. The common method of exploitation
of this flaw is to cross privilege boundaries when following a given
hardlink (i.e. a root process follows a hardlink created by another
user). Additionally, an issue exists where users can "pin" a potentially
vulnerable setuid/setgid file so that an administrator will not actually
upgrade a system fully.

The solution is to permit hardlinks to only be created when the user is
already the existing file's owner, or if they already have read/write
access to the existing file.

Many Linux users are surprised when they learn they can link to files
they have no access to, so this change appears to follow the doctrine
of "least surprise". Additionally, this change does not violate POSIX,
which states "the implementation may require that the calling process
has permission to access the existing file"[1].

This change is known to break some implementations of the "at" daemon,
though the version used by Fedora and Ubuntu has been fixed[2] for
a while. Otherwise, the change has been undisruptive while in use in
Ubuntu for the last 1.5 years.

[1] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/linkat.html
[2] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/at.git;a=commitdiff;h=f4114656c3a6c6f6070e315ffdf940a49eda3279

This patch is based on the patches in Openwall and grsecurity, along with
suggestions from Al Viro. I have added a sysctl to enable the protected
behavior, and documentation.

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2012-07-29 21:37:58 +04:00
KOSAKI Motohiro
cef0184c11 mqueue: separate mqueue default value from maximum value
Commit b231cca438 ("message queues: increase range limits") changed
mqueue default value when attr parameter is specified NULL from hard
coded value to fs.mqueue.{msg,msgsize}_max sysctl value.

This made large side effect.  When user need to use two mqueue
applications 1) using !NULL attr parameter and it require big message
size and 2) using NULL attr parameter and only need small size message,
app (1) require to raise fs.mqueue.msgsize_max and app (2) consume large
memory size even though it doesn't need.

Doug Ledford propsed to switch back it to static hard coded value.
However it also has a compatibility problem.  Some applications might
started depend on the default value is tunable.

The solution is to separate default value from maximum value.

Signed-off-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Joe Korty <joe.korty@ccur.com>
Cc: Amerigo Wang <amwang@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Serge E. Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
Cc: Manfred Spraul <manfred@colorfullife.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-05-31 17:49:31 -07:00
Shan Wei
c60f6aa8ac net: doc: merge /proc/sys/net/core/* documents into one place
All parameter descriptions in /proc/sys/net/core/* now is separated
two places. So, merge them into Documentation/sysctl/net.txt.

Signed-off-by: Shan Wei <davidshan@tencent.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2012-04-27 00:09:26 -04:00
Larry Finger
f5fe184b08 Documentation: add missing tainted bits to Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
Two of the bits in the tainted flag are not documented.

Signed-off-by: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-02-06 16:29:19 -08:00
Pavel Emelyanov
b8f566b04d sysctl: add the kernel.ns_last_pid control
The sysctl works on the current task's pid namespace, getting and setting
its last_pid field.

Writing is allowed for CAP_SYS_ADMIN-capable tasks thus making it possible
to create a task with desired pid value.  This ability is required badly
for the checkpoint/restore in userspace.

This approach suits all the parties for now.

Signed-off-by: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@parallels.com>
Acked-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@openvz.org>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-01-12 20:13:11 -08:00
Mitsuo Hayasaka
55af77969f x86: Panic on detection of stack overflow
Currently, messages are just output on the detection of stack
overflow, which is not sufficient for systems that need a
high reliability. This is because in general the overflow may
corrupt data, and the additional corruption may occur due to
reading them unless systems stop.

This patch adds the sysctl parameter
kernel.panic_on_stackoverflow and causes a panic when detecting
the overflows of kernel, IRQ and exception stacks except user
stack according to the parameter. It is disabled by default.

Signed-off-by: Mitsuo Hayasaka <mitsuo.hayasaka.hu@hitachi.com>
Cc: yrl.pp-manager.tt@hitachi.com
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20111129060836.11076.12323.stgit@ltc219.sdl.hitachi.co.jp
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2011-12-05 11:37:47 +01:00
Dan Ballard
73efc0394e kernel/sysctl.c: add cap_last_cap to /proc/sys/kernel
Userspace needs to know the highest valid capability of the running
kernel, which right now cannot reliably be retrieved from the header files
only.  The fact that this value cannot be determined properly right now
creates various problems for libraries compiled on newer header files
which are run on older kernels.  They assume capabilities are available
which actually aren't.  libcap-ng is one example.  And we ran into the
same problem with systemd too.

Now the capability is exported in /proc/sys/kernel/cap_last_cap.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make cap_last_cap const, per Ulrich]
Signed-off-by: Dan Ballard <dan@mindstab.net>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Lennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>
Cc: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Cc: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@akkadia.org>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-10-31 17:30:53 -07:00
Vasiliy Kulikov
b34a6b1da3 ipc: introduce shm_rmid_forced sysctl
Add support for the shm_rmid_forced sysctl.  If set to 1, all shared
memory objects in current ipc namespace will be automatically forced to
use IPC_RMID.

The POSIX way of handling shmem allows one to create shm objects and
call shmdt(), leaving shm object associated with no process, thus
consuming memory not counted via rlimits.

With shm_rmid_forced=1 the shared memory object is counted at least for
one process, so OOM killer may effectively kill the fat process holding
the shared memory.

It obviously breaks POSIX - some programs relying on the feature would
stop working.  So set shm_rmid_forced=1 only if you're sure nobody uses
"orphaned" memory.  Use shm_rmid_forced=0 by default for compatability
reasons.

The feature was previously impemented in -ow as a configure option.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix documentation, per Randy]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix warning]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: readability/conventionality tweaks]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix shm_rmid_forced/shm_forced_rmid confusion, use standard comment layout]
Signed-off-by: Vasiliy Kulikov <segoon@openwall.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge.hallyn@canonical.com>
Cc: Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@free.fr>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Solar Designer <solar@openwall.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-07-26 16:49:44 -07:00
Borislav Petkov
807094c0b1 Documentation: refresh sysctl/kernel.txt
Refresh sysctl/kernel.txt.  More specifically,

 - drop stale index entries
 - sync and sort index and entries
 - reflow sticking out paragraphs to colwidth 72
 - correct typos
 - cleanup whitespace

Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-07-23 10:58:08 -07:00
Jiri Slaby
57cc083ad9 coredump: add support for exe_file in core name
Now, exe_file is not proc FS dependent, so we can use it to name core
file.  So we add %E pattern for core file name cration which extract path
from mm_struct->exe_file.  Then it converts slashes to exclamation marks
and pastes the result to the core file name itself.

This is useful for environments where binary names are longer than 16
character (the current->comm limitation).  Also where there are binaries
with same name but in a different path.  Further in case the binery itself
changes its current->comm after exec.

So by doing (s/$/#/ -- # is treated as git comment):

  $ sysctl kernel.core_pattern='core.%p.%e.%E'
  $ ln /bin/cat cat45678901234567890
  $ ./cat45678901234567890
  ^Z
  $ rm cat45678901234567890
  $ fg
  ^\Quit (core dumped)
  $ ls core*

we now get:

  core.2434.cat456789012345.!root!cat45678901234567890 (deleted)

Signed-off-by: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Reviewed-by: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-05-26 17:12:36 -07:00
Lucian Adrian Grijincu
52307a9e1d Documentation: update epoll sysctl text
max_user_instances was removed in this commit:

   commit 9df04e1f25
   Author: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
   Date:   Thu Jan 29 14:25:26 2009 -0800

    epoll: drop max_user_instances and rely only on max_user_watches

but the documentation entry was not removed.

Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Lucian Adrian Grijincu <lucian.grijincu@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-05-23 15:14:11 -07:00
Linus Torvalds
57d19e80f4 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial: (39 commits)
  b43: fix comment typo reqest -> request
  Haavard Skinnemoen has left Atmel
  cris: typo in mach-fs Makefile
  Kconfig: fix copy/paste-ism for dell-wmi-aio driver
  doc: timers-howto: fix a typo ("unsgined")
  perf: Only include annotate.h once in tools/perf/util/ui/browsers/annotate.c
  md, raid5: Fix spelling error in comment ('Ofcourse' --> 'Of course').
  treewide: fix a few typos in comments
  regulator: change debug statement be consistent with the style of the rest
  Revert "arm: mach-u300/gpio: Fix mem_region resource size miscalculations"
  audit: acquire creds selectively to reduce atomic op overhead
  rtlwifi: don't touch with treewide double semicolon removal
  treewide: cleanup continuations and remove logging message whitespace
  ath9k_hw: don't touch with treewide double semicolon removal
  include/linux/leds-regulator.h: fix syntax in example code
  tty: fix typo in descripton of tty_termios_encode_baud_rate
  xtensa: remove obsolete BKL kernel option from defconfig
  m68k: fix comment typo 'occcured'
  arch:Kconfig.locks Remove unused config option.
  treewide: remove extra semicolons
  ...
2011-05-23 09:12:26 -07:00
Eric Dumazet
0a14842f5a net: filter: Just In Time compiler for x86-64
In order to speedup packet filtering, here is an implementation of a
JIT compiler for x86_64

It is disabled by default, and must be enabled by the admin.

echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable

It uses module_alloc() and module_free() to get memory in the 2GB text
kernel range since we call helpers functions from the generated code.

EAX : BPF A accumulator
EBX : BPF X accumulator
RDI : pointer to skb   (first argument given to JIT function)
RBP : frame pointer (even if CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER=n)
r9d : skb->len - skb->data_len (headlen)
r8  : skb->data

To get a trace of generated code, use :

echo 2 >/proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable

Example of generated code :

# tcpdump -p -n -s 0 -i eth1 host 192.168.20.0/24

flen=18 proglen=147 pass=3 image=ffffffffa00b5000
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5000: 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 60 48 89 5d f8 44 8b 4f 60
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5010: 44 2b 4f 64 4c 8b 87 b8 00 00 00 be 0c 00 00 00
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5020: e8 24 7b f7 e0 3d 00 08 00 00 75 28 be 1a 00 00
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5030: 00 e8 fe 7a f7 e0 24 00 3d 00 14 a8 c0 74 49 be
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5040: 1e 00 00 00 e8 eb 7a f7 e0 24 00 3d 00 14 a8 c0
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5050: 74 36 eb 3b 3d 06 08 00 00 74 07 3d 35 80 00 00
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5060: 75 2d be 1c 00 00 00 e8 c8 7a f7 e0 24 00 3d 00
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5070: 14 a8 c0 74 13 be 26 00 00 00 e8 b5 7a f7 e0 24
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5080: 00 3d 00 14 a8 c0 75 07 b8 ff ff 00 00 eb 02 31
JIT code: ffffffffa00b5090: c0 c9 c3

BPF program is 144 bytes long, so native program is almost same size ;)

(000) ldh      [12]
(001) jeq      #0x800           jt 2    jf 8
(002) ld       [26]
(003) and      #0xffffff00
(004) jeq      #0xc0a81400      jt 16   jf 5
(005) ld       [30]
(006) and      #0xffffff00
(007) jeq      #0xc0a81400      jt 16   jf 17
(008) jeq      #0x806           jt 10   jf 9
(009) jeq      #0x8035          jt 10   jf 17
(010) ld       [28]
(011) and      #0xffffff00
(012) jeq      #0xc0a81400      jt 16   jf 13
(013) ld       [38]
(014) and      #0xffffff00
(015) jeq      #0xc0a81400      jt 16   jf 17
(016) ret      
(017) ret      

Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@infradead.org>
Cc: Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>
Cc: Hagen Paul Pfeifer <hagen@jauu.net>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2011-04-27 23:05:08 -07:00
Paul Bolle
5a3016a615 doc: fix 3 typos in sysctl/vm.txt
Signed-off-by: Paul Bolle <pebolle@tiscali.nl>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2011-04-06 07:09:35 -07:00
Linus Torvalds
e16b396ce3 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial: (47 commits)
  doc: CONFIG_UNEVICTABLE_LRU doesn't exist anymore
  Update cpuset info & webiste for cgroups
  dcdbas: force SMI to happen when expected
  arch/arm/Kconfig: remove one to many l's in the word.
  asm-generic/user.h: Fix spelling in comment
  drm: fix printk typo 'sracth'
  Remove one to many n's in a word
  Documentation/filesystems/romfs.txt: fixing link to genromfs
  drivers:scsi Change printk typo initate -> initiate
  serial, pch uart: Remove duplicate inclusion of linux/pci.h header
  fs/eventpoll.c: fix spelling
  mm: Fix out-of-date comments which refers non-existent functions
  drm: Fix printk typo 'failled'
  coh901318.c: Change initate to initiate.
  mbox-db5500.c Change initate to initiate.
  edac: correct i82975x error-info reported
  edac: correct i82975x mci initialisation
  edac: correct commented info
  fs: update comments to point correct document
  target: remove duplicate include of target/target_core_device.h from drivers/target/target_core_hba.c
  ...

Trivial conflict in fs/eventpoll.c (spelling vs addition)
2011-03-18 10:37:40 -07:00
Federica Teodori
ca3b78aa16 Documentation: file handles are now freed
Since file handles are freed, a little amendment to the documentation

Signed-off-by: Federica Teodori <federica.teodori@googlemail.com>
Acked-by: Rik van Riel<riel@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-03-16 10:47:03 -07:00
Paul Bolle
87889e158f Documentation: default_message_level is a typo
It's default_message_loglevel, not default_message_level.

Signed-off-by: Paul Bolle <pebolle@tiscali.nl>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2011-02-11 15:14:10 +01:00
Jovi Zhang
e020e742e5 sysctl: remove obsolete comments
ctl_unnumbered.txt have been removed in Documentation directory so just
also remove this invalid comments

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix Documentation/sysctl/00-INDEX, per Dave]
Signed-off-by: Jovi Zhang <bookjovi@gmail.com>
Cc: Dave Young <hidave.darkstar@gmail.com>
Acked-by: WANG Cong <xiyou.wangcong@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
Dan Rosenberg
455cd5ab30 kptr_restrict for hiding kernel pointers from unprivileged users
Add the %pK printk format specifier and the /proc/sys/kernel/kptr_restrict
sysctl.

The %pK format specifier is designed to hide exposed kernel pointers,
specifically via /proc interfaces.  Exposing these pointers provides an
easy target for kernel write vulnerabilities, since they reveal the
locations of writable structures containing easily triggerable function
pointers.  The behavior of %pK depends on the kptr_restrict sysctl.

If kptr_restrict is set to 0, no deviation from the standard %p behavior
occurs.  If kptr_restrict is set to 1, the default, if the current user
(intended to be a reader via seq_printf(), etc.) does not have CAP_SYSLOG
(currently in the LSM tree), kernel pointers using %pK are printed as 0's.
 If kptr_restrict is set to 2, kernel pointers using %pK are printed as
0's regardless of privileges.  Replacing with 0's was chosen over the
default "(null)", which cannot be parsed by userland %p, which expects
"(nil)".

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: check for IRQ context when !kptr_restrict, save an indent level, s/WARN/WARN_ONCE/]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixup]
[randy.dunlap@oracle.com: fix kernel/sysctl.c warning]
Signed-off-by: Dan Rosenberg <drosenberg@vsecurity.com>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
Cc: Thomas Graf <tgraf@infradead.org>
Cc: Eugene Teo <eugeneteo@kernel.org>
Cc: Kees Cook <kees.cook@canonical.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Eric Paris <eparis@parisplace.org>

Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2011-01-13 08:03:08 -08:00
Serge E. Hallyn
38ef4c2e43 syslog: check cap_syslog when dmesg_restrict
Eric Paris pointed out that it doesn't make sense to require
both CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_SYSLOG for certain syslog actions.
So require CAP_SYSLOG, not CAP_SYS_ADMIN, when dmesg_restrict
is set.

(I'm also consolidating the now common error path)

Signed-off-by: Serge E. Hallyn <serge.hallyn@canonical.com>
Acked-by: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Kees Cook <kees.cook@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2010-12-09 09:48:48 +11:00
Dan Rosenberg
eaf06b241b Restrict unprivileged access to kernel syslog
The kernel syslog contains debugging information that is often useful
during exploitation of other vulnerabilities, such as kernel heap
addresses.  Rather than futilely attempt to sanitize hundreds (or
thousands) of printk statements and simultaneously cripple useful
debugging functionality, it is far simpler to create an option that
prevents unprivileged users from reading the syslog.

This patch, loosely based on grsecurity's GRKERNSEC_DMESG, creates the
dmesg_restrict sysctl.  When set to "0", the default, no restrictions are
enforced.  When set to "1", only users with CAP_SYS_ADMIN can read the
kernel syslog via dmesg(8) or other mechanisms.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: explain the config option in kernel.txt]
Signed-off-by: Dan Rosenberg <drosenberg@vsecurity.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Acked-by: Eugene Teo <eugeneteo@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Kees Cook <kees.cook@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-11-12 07:55:32 -08:00
Andrea Righi
abffc0207f doc: clarify the behaviour of dirty_ratio/dirty_bytes
When dirty_ratio or dirty_bytes is written the other parameter is disabled
and set to 0 (in dirty_bytes_handler() / dirty_ratio_handler()).

We do the same for dirty_background_ratio and dirty_background_bytes.

However, in the sysctl documentation, we say that the counterpart becomes
a function of the old value, that is not correct.

Clarify the documentation reporting the actual behaviour.

Reviewed-by: Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Acked-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrea Righi <arighi@develer.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-10-27 18:03:08 -07:00
David Rientjes
ad915c432e oom: enable oom tasklist dump by default
The oom killer tasklist dump, enabled with the oom_dump_tasks sysctl, is
very helpful information in diagnosing why a user's task has been killed.
It emits useful information such as each eligible thread's memory usage
that can determine why the system is oom, so it should be enabled by
default.

Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Acked-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-08-09 20:44:56 -07:00
Kulikov Vasiliy
2174efb6a2 Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt typo
Fix trivial typo: duplicated word.

Signed-off-by: Kulikov Vasiliy <segooon@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2010-06-28 13:59:28 +02:00
Mel Gorman
5e77190580 mm: compaction: add a tunable that decides when memory should be compacted and when it should be reclaimed
The kernel applies some heuristics when deciding if memory should be
compacted or reclaimed to satisfy a high-order allocation.  One of these
is based on the fragmentation.  If the index is below 500, memory will not
be compacted.  This choice is arbitrary and not based on data.  To help
optimise the system and set a sensible default for this value, this patch
adds a sysctl extfrag_threshold.  The kernel will only compact memory if
the fragmentation index is above the extfrag_threshold.

[randy.dunlap@oracle.com: Fix build errors when proc fs is not configured]
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-05-25 08:06:59 -07:00
Mel Gorman
76ab0f530e mm: compaction: add /proc trigger for memory compaction
Add a proc file /proc/sys/vm/compact_memory.  When an arbitrary value is
written to the file, all zones are compacted.  The expected user of such a
trigger is a job scheduler that prepares the system before the target
application runs.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-05-25 08:06:59 -07:00
Eric Dumazet
3b098e2d7c net: Consistent skb timestamping
With RPS inclusion, skb timestamping is not consistent in RX path.

If netif_receive_skb() is used, its deferred after RPS dispatch.

If netif_rx() is used, its done before RPS dispatch.

This can give strange tcpdump timestamps results.

I think timestamping should be done as soon as possible in the receive
path, to get meaningful values (ie timestamps taken at the time packet
was delivered by NIC driver to our stack), even if NAPI already can
defer timestamping a bit (RPS can help to reduce the gap)

Tom Herbert prefer to sample timestamps after RPS dispatch. In case
sampling is expensive (HPET/acpi_pm on x86), this makes sense.

Let admins switch from one mode to another, using a new
sysctl, /proc/sys/net/core/netdev_tstamp_prequeue

Its default value (1), means timestamps are taken as soon as possible,
before backlog queueing, giving accurate timestamps.

Setting a 0 value permits to sample timestamps when processing backlog,
after RPS dispatch, to lower the load of the pre-RPS cpu.

Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2010-05-15 23:57:10 -07:00
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
daaf1e6887 memcg: handle panic_on_oom=always case
Presently, if panic_on_oom=2, the whole system panics even if the oom
happend in some special situation (as cpuset, mempolicy....).  Then,
panic_on_oom=2 means painc_on_oom_always.

Now, memcg doesn't check panic_on_oom flag. This patch adds a check.

BTW, how it's useful ?

kdump+panic_on_oom=2 is the last tool to investigate what happens in
oom-ed system.  When a task is killed, the sysytem recovers and there will
be few hint to know what happnes.  In mission critical system, oom should
never happen.  Then, panic_on_oom=2+kdump is useful to avoid next OOM by
knowing precise information via snapshot.

TODO:
 - For memcg, it's for isolate system's memory usage, oom-notiifer and
   freeze_at_oom (or rest_at_oom) should be implemented. Then, management
   daemon can do similar jobs (as kdump) or taking snapshot per cgroup.

Signed-off-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Balbir Singh <balbir@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Reviewed-by: Daisuke Nishimura <nishimura@mxp.nes.nec.co.jp>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-03-12 15:52:37 -08:00
H. Peter Anvin
d75757abd0 doc: Add documentation for bootloader_{type,version}
Add documentation for kernel/bootloader_type and
kernel/bootloader_version to sysctl/kernel.txt.  This should really
have been done a long time ago.

Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Shen Feng <shen@cn.fujitsu.com>
2009-12-11 14:28:56 -08:00
Linus Torvalds
4ef58d4e2a Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial: (42 commits)
  tree-wide: fix misspelling of "definition" in comments
  reiserfs: fix misspelling of "journaled"
  doc: Fix a typo in slub.txt.
  inotify: remove superfluous return code check
  hdlc: spelling fix in find_pvc() comment
  doc: fix regulator docs cut-and-pasteism
  mtd: Fix comment in Kconfig
  doc: Fix IRQ chip docs
  tree-wide: fix assorted typos all over the place
  drivers/ata/libata-sff.c: comment spelling fixes
  fix typos/grammos in Documentation/edac.txt
  sysctl: add missing comments
  fs/debugfs/inode.c: fix comment typos
  sgivwfb: Make use of ARRAY_SIZE.
  sky2: fix sky2_link_down copy/paste comment error
  tree-wide: fix typos "couter" -> "counter"
  tree-wide: fix typos "offest" -> "offset"
  fix kerneldoc for set_irq_msi()
  spidev: fix double "of of" in comment
  comment typo fix: sybsystem -> subsystem
  ...
2009-12-09 19:43:33 -08:00
André Goddard Rosa
af901ca181 tree-wide: fix assorted typos all over the place
That is "success", "unknown", "through", "performance", "[re|un]mapping"
, "access", "default", "reasonable", "[con]currently", "temperature"
, "channel", "[un]used", "application", "example","hierarchy", "therefore"
, "[over|under]flow", "contiguous", "threshold", "enough" and others.

Signed-off-by: André Goddard Rosa <andre.goddard@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2009-12-04 15:39:55 +01:00
Eric W. Biederman
86926d0096 sysctl: Remove CTL_NONE and CTL_UNNUMBERED
Now that the sysctl structures no longer have a ctl_name field
there is no reason to retain the definitions for CTL_NONE and
CTL_UNNUMBERED, or to explain their historic usage.

Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
2009-11-18 08:14:55 -08:00
Randy Dunlap
7beeec88e5 docs: fix core_pipe_limit info
Fix typos in core_pipe_limit info.

Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Cc: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2009-11-09 09:40:55 +01:00
Linus Torvalds
db16826367 Merge branch 'hwpoison' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/ak/linux-mce-2.6
* 'hwpoison' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/ak/linux-mce-2.6: (21 commits)
  HWPOISON: Enable error_remove_page on btrfs
  HWPOISON: Add simple debugfs interface to inject hwpoison on arbitary PFNs
  HWPOISON: Add madvise() based injector for hardware poisoned pages v4
  HWPOISON: Enable error_remove_page for NFS
  HWPOISON: Enable .remove_error_page for migration aware file systems
  HWPOISON: The high level memory error handler in the VM v7
  HWPOISON: Add PR_MCE_KILL prctl to control early kill behaviour per process
  HWPOISON: shmem: call set_page_dirty() with locked page
  HWPOISON: Define a new error_remove_page address space op for async truncation
  HWPOISON: Add invalidate_inode_page
  HWPOISON: Refactor truncate to allow direct truncating of page v2
  HWPOISON: check and isolate corrupted free pages v2
  HWPOISON: Handle hardware poisoned pages in try_to_unmap
  HWPOISON: Use bitmask/action code for try_to_unmap behaviour
  HWPOISON: x86: Add VM_FAULT_HWPOISON handling to x86 page fault handler v2
  HWPOISON: Add poison check to page fault handling
  HWPOISON: Add basic support for poisoned pages in fault handler v3
  HWPOISON: Add new SIGBUS error codes for hardware poison signals
  HWPOISON: Add support for poison swap entries v2
  HWPOISON: Export some rmap vma locking to outside world
  ...
2009-09-24 07:53:22 -07:00
Neil Horman
a293980c2e exec: let do_coredump() limit the number of concurrent dumps to pipes
Introduce core pipe limiting sysctl.

Since we can dump cores to pipe, rather than directly to the filesystem,
we create a condition in which a user can create a very high load on the
system simply by running bad applications.

If the pipe reader specified in core_pattern is poorly written, we can
have lots of ourstandig resources and processes in the system.

This sysctl introduces an ability to limit that resource consumption.
core_pipe_limit defines how many in-flight dumps may be run in parallel,
dumps beyond this value are skipped and a note is made in the kernel log.
A special value of 0 in core_pipe_limit denotes unlimited core dumps may
be handled (this is the default value).

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
Signed-off-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Reported-by: Earl Chew <earl_chew@agilent.com>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-09-24 07:21:00 -07:00
Xiaotian Feng
bcadbbd4c8 Documentation: update stale definition of file-nr in fs.txt
In "documentation: update Documentation/filesystem/proc.txt and
Documentation/sysctls" (commit 760df93ec) we merged /proc/sys/fs
documentation in Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt and
Documentation/filesystem/proc.txt, but stale file-nr definition
remained.

This patch adds back the right fs-nr definition for 2.6 kernel.

Signed-off-by: Xiaotian Feng<dfeng@redhat.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-09-24 07:20:57 -07:00
Dave Young
af91322ef3 printk: add printk_delay to make messages readable for some scenarios
When syslog is not possible, at the same time there's no serial/net
console available, it will be hard to read the printk messages.  For
example oops/panic/warning messages in shutdown phase.

Add a printk delay feature, we can make each printk message delay some
milliseconds.

Setting the delay by proc/sysctl interface: /proc/sys/kernel/printk_delay

The value range from 0 - 10000, default value is 0

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix a few things]
Signed-off-by: Dave Young <hidave.darkstar@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-09-23 07:39:28 -07:00
Linus Torvalds
342ff1a1b5 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial: (34 commits)
  trivial: fix typo in aic7xxx comment
  trivial: fix comment typo in drivers/ata/pata_hpt37x.c
  trivial: typo in kernel-parameters.txt
  trivial: fix typo in tracing documentation
  trivial: add __init/__exit macros in drivers/gpio/bt8xxgpio.c
  trivial: add __init macro/ fix of __exit macro location in ipmi_poweroff.c
  trivial: remove unnecessary semicolons
  trivial: Fix duplicated word "options" in comment
  trivial: kbuild: remove extraneous blank line after declaration of usage()
  trivial: improve help text for mm debug config options
  trivial: doc: hpfall: accept disk device to unload as argument
  trivial: doc: hpfall: reduce risk that hpfall can do harm
  trivial: SubmittingPatches: Fix reference to renumbered step
  trivial: fix typos "man[ae]g?ment" -> "management"
  trivial: media/video/cx88: add __init/__exit macros to cx88 drivers
  trivial: fix typo in CONFIG_DEBUG_FS in gcov doc
  trivial: fix missing printk space in amd_k7_smp_check
  trivial: fix typo s/ketymap/keymap/ in comment
  trivial: fix typo "to to" in multiple files
  trivial: fix typos in comments s/DGBU/DBGU/
  ...
2009-09-22 07:51:45 -07:00
Jan Kara
55c37a840d vm: document that setting vfs_cache_pressure to 0 isn't a good idea
Reported-by: Christian Thaeter <ct@pipapo.org>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-09-22 07:17:30 -07:00