linux/Documentation
Dmitry Vyukov 5c9a8750a6 kernel: add kcov code coverage
kcov provides code coverage collection for coverage-guided fuzzing
(randomized testing).  Coverage-guided fuzzing is a testing technique
that uses coverage feedback to determine new interesting inputs to a
system.  A notable user-space example is AFL
(http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/).  However, this technique is not
widely used for kernel testing due to missing compiler and kernel
support.

kcov does not aim to collect as much coverage as possible.  It aims to
collect more or less stable coverage that is function of syscall inputs.
To achieve this goal it does not collect coverage in soft/hard
interrupts and instrumentation of some inherently non-deterministic or
non-interesting parts of kernel is disbled (e.g.  scheduler, locking).

Currently there is a single coverage collection mode (tracing), but the
API anticipates additional collection modes.  Initially I also
implemented a second mode which exposes coverage in a fixed-size hash
table of counters (what Quentin used in his original patch).  I've
dropped the second mode for simplicity.

This patch adds the necessary support on kernel side.  The complimentary
compiler support was added in gcc revision 231296.

We've used this support to build syzkaller system call fuzzer, which has
found 90 kernel bugs in just 2 months:

  https://github.com/google/syzkaller/wiki/Found-Bugs

We've also found 30+ bugs in our internal systems with syzkaller.
Another (yet unexplored) direction where kcov coverage would greatly
help is more traditional "blob mutation".  For example, mounting a
random blob as a filesystem, or receiving a random blob over wire.

Why not gcov.  Typical fuzzing loop looks as follows: (1) reset
coverage, (2) execute a bit of code, (3) collect coverage, repeat.  A
typical coverage can be just a dozen of basic blocks (e.g.  an invalid
input).  In such context gcov becomes prohibitively expensive as
reset/collect coverage steps depend on total number of basic
blocks/edges in program (in case of kernel it is about 2M).  Cost of
kcov depends only on number of executed basic blocks/edges.  On top of
that, kernel requires per-thread coverage because there are always
background threads and unrelated processes that also produce coverage.
With inlined gcov instrumentation per-thread coverage is not possible.

kcov exposes kernel PCs and control flow to user-space which is
insecure.  But debugfs should not be mapped as user accessible.

Based on a patch by Quentin Casasnovas.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make task_struct.kcov_mode have type `enum kcov_mode']
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: unbreak allmodconfig]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: follow x86 Makefile layout standards]
Signed-off-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: syzkaller <syzkaller@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Tavis Ormandy <taviso@google.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Cc: Quentin Casasnovas <quentin.casasnovas@oracle.com>
Cc: Kostya Serebryany <kcc@google.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@google.com>
Cc: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
Cc: Sasha Levin <sasha.levin@oracle.com>
Cc: David Drysdale <drysdale@google.com>
Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <ryabinin.a.a@gmail.com>
Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill@shutemov.name>
Cc: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
..
ABI Merge tag 'for-f2fs-4.6' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jaegeuk/f2fs 2016-03-21 11:03:02 -07:00
accounting Documentation-getdelays: Apply a recommendation from "checkpatch.pl" in main() 2015-12-24 07:22:32 -07:00
acpi mfd: core: redo ACPI matching of the children devices 2015-10-26 15:25:53 +01:00
aoe
arm ARM: SoC 64-bit changes for v4.6 2016-03-20 15:08:45 -07:00
arm64 arm64: Add workaround for Cavium erratum 27456 2016-02-26 15:14:27 +00:00
auxdisplay
backlight
blackfin
block A relatively boring cycle in the docs tree. There's a few kernel-doc 2016-01-17 11:55:07 -08:00
blockdev cpqarray: remove it from the kernel 2016-03-14 09:06:01 -06:00
bus-devices
cdrom
cgroup-v1 Merge branch 'for-4.6' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/cgroup 2016-03-18 20:25:49 -07:00
cma
connector
console
cpu-freq Documentation: cpufreq: intel_pstate: fix typo 2016-02-18 20:31:53 +01:00
cpuidle
cris
crypto crypto: doc - Use ahash 2016-02-06 15:33:11 +08:00
development-process
device-mapper dm cache: make the 'mq' policy an alias for 'smq' 2016-03-10 17:12:08 -05:00
devicetree MMC core: 2016-03-21 14:35:52 -07:00
dmaengine Merge branch 'topic/async' into for-linus 2016-01-06 15:17:47 +05:30
DocBook Merge branch 'drm-next' of git://people.freedesktop.org/~airlied/linux 2016-03-21 13:48:00 -07:00
driver-model Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/linux-arm 2016-03-19 16:31:54 -07:00
dvb [media] media: change email address 2016-01-25 12:01:08 -02:00
early-userspace
EDID
extcon
fault-injection net: Add support for CHANGEUPPER notifier error injection 2015-12-03 11:49:23 -05:00
fb
features arm64 updates for 4.6: 2016-03-17 20:03:47 -07:00
filesystems fat: add config option to set UTF-8 mount option by default 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
firmware_class
fmc
fpga
frv
gpio gpio: documenatation: fix GPIO_LOOKUP{,_IDX} documentation 2016-02-25 16:01:51 +01:00
hid
hwmon hwmon: Create an NSA320 hardware monitoring driver 2016-03-08 18:40:49 -08:00
i2c Doc: i2c: Fix typo in Documentation/i2c 2016-02-10 13:12:14 -07:00
ia64
ide
iio iio: Documentation: Add IIO configfs documentation 2015-12-03 18:19:28 +00:00
infiniband IB: remove in-kernel support for memory windows 2015-12-23 14:29:04 -05:00
input Input: add userio module 2015-10-27 18:55:31 -07:00
ioctl gpio: uapi: use 0xB4 as ioctl() major 2016-03-10 16:02:52 +07:00
isdn isdn: i4l: move active-isdn drivers to staging 2016-03-05 15:00:38 -08:00
ja_JP Doc: ja_JP: Fix a typo in HOWTO 2016-02-10 13:14:37 -07:00
kbuild
kdump
ko_KR Documentation/ko_KR: update maintainer information 2016-02-17 14:10:39 -07:00
laptops
leds Documentation: leds: Add description of brightness setting API 2016-01-04 09:57:31 +01:00
locking Merge branch 'locking-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2015-11-03 16:10:43 -08:00
m68k
memory-devices
metag
mic Char/Misc patches for 4.6-rc1 2016-03-17 13:47:50 -07:00
mips
misc-devices Merge char-misc-next into staging-next 2016-02-22 14:46:24 -08:00
mmc mmc: core: Remove MMC_CLKGATE 2015-10-26 16:00:09 +01:00
mn10300
mtd Documentation: mtd: improve nand_ecc.txt for readability and correctness 2015-11-17 17:05:14 -08:00
namespaces
netlabel
networking net: dsa: rename port_*_bridge routines 2016-03-14 16:05:31 -04:00
nfc
nios2
nvdimm libnvdimm: documentation clarifications 2015-11-12 09:55:23 -08:00
nvmem
parisc
PCI
pcmcia
phy
platform
power Merge branches 'pm-pci' and 'pm-core' 2016-01-12 01:10:52 +01:00
powerpc cxl: Support to flash a new image on the adapter from a guest 2016-03-09 23:39:56 +11:00
pps
prctl Documentation: Fix int/unsigned int comparison 2016-02-17 14:09:43 -07:00
pti
ptp Another relatively boring cycle for the docs tree: typo fixes, translation 2016-03-17 12:09:35 -07:00
rapidio rapidio: add mport char device driver 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
RCU documentation: Update RCU requirements based on expedited changes 2015-12-05 12:34:32 -08:00
s390 s390/zcore: remove /sys/kernel/debug/zcore/mem 2015-11-27 09:24:12 +01:00
scheduler
scsi st: Fix MTMKPART to work with newer drives 2016-02-23 21:27:02 -05:00
security keys, trusted: seal with a TPM2 authorization policy 2015-12-20 15:27:13 +02:00
serial tty: Remove chars_in_buffer() line discipline method 2016-01-27 15:01:44 -08:00
sh
sound Merge branch 'topic/hda-mst' into for-next 2016-02-10 09:25:15 +01:00
spi spi: tools: move spidev_test metadata 2015-11-30 12:14:12 +00:00
sysctl Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2016-03-18 19:26:54 -07:00
target
thermal thermal: add description for integral_cutoff unit 2016-01-14 13:29:08 -07:00
timers Another relatively boring cycle for the docs tree: typo fixes, translation 2016-03-17 12:09:35 -07:00
tpm
trace x86, tracing, perf: Add trace point for MSR accesses 2015-12-06 12:56:10 +01:00
usb usb: devio: Add ioctl to disallow detaching kernel USB drivers. 2016-03-05 12:05:01 -08:00
vDSO
video4linux [media] saa7134: Add support for Snazio TvPVR PRO 2016-03-03 09:03:48 -03:00
virtual One of the largest releases for KVM... Hardly any generic improvement, 2016-03-16 09:55:35 -07:00
vm mm: thp: set THP defrag by default to madvise and add a stall-free defrag option 2016-03-17 15:09:34 -07:00
w1
watchdog Merge git://www.linux-watchdog.org/linux-watchdog 2016-03-19 19:35:51 -07:00
wimax
x86 Merge branch 'efi-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2016-03-20 18:58:18 -07:00
xtensa
zh_CN Documentation: Chinese translation of arm64/silicon-errata.txt 2016-02-17 14:08:07 -07:00
00-INDEX
adding-syscalls.txt
applying-patches.txt
assoc_array.txt
atomic_ops.txt
bad_memory.txt
basic_profiling.txt
bcache.txt
binfmt_misc.txt
braille-console.txt
bt8xxgpio.txt
btmrvl.txt
BUG-HUNTING
bus-virt-phys-mapping.txt
cachetlb.txt
cgroup-v2.txt Merge branch 'for-4.6-ns' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/cgroup 2016-03-21 10:05:13 -07:00
Changes There is a nice new document from Neil on how pathname lookups work and 2015-11-05 15:59:24 -08:00
circular-buffers.txt
clk.txt
coccinelle.txt
CodeOfConflict
CodingStyle Documentation/CodingStyle: add space before parenthesis in example macro 2016-01-25 12:36:28 -07:00
cpu-hotplug.txt Documentation: cpu-hotplug: Fix sysfs mount instructions 2015-12-10 11:35:30 -07:00
cpu-load.txt
cputopology.txt
crc32.txt
dcdbas.txt
debugging-modules.txt
debugging-via-ohci1394.txt
dell_rbu.txt
devices.txt
digsig.txt
DMA-API-HOWTO.txt dma-mapping: always provide the dma_map_ops based implementation 2016-01-20 17:09:18 -08:00
DMA-API.txt DMA-API: fix confusing sentence in Documentation/DMA-API.txt 2016-01-11 18:29:00 -07:00
DMA-attributes.txt ARM: 8506/1: common: DMA-mapping: add DMA_ATTR_ALLOC_SINGLE_PAGES attribute 2016-02-11 15:33:38 +00:00
dma-buf-sharing.txt dma-buf: Add ioctls to allow userspace to flush 2016-02-12 16:01:32 +01:00
DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
dontdiff Documentation: dontdiff: remove media from dontdiff 2015-11-11 10:08:07 -07:00
dynamic-debug-howto.txt
edac.txt EDAC: Remove references to bluesmoke.sourceforge.net 2015-11-26 14:46:06 +01:00
efi-stub.txt doc: efi-stub.txt: Fix arm64 paths 2015-12-14 15:24:03 +00:00
eisa.txt
email-clients.txt A few more documentation patches that wandered in and have no reason to 2015-11-13 09:19:05 -08:00
flexible-arrays.txt
futex-requeue-pi.txt
gcov.txt
gdb-kernel-debugging.txt
highuid.txt
HOWTO Documentation: Howto: Fixed subtitles style 2016-03-09 15:30:03 -07:00
hsi.txt
hw_random.txt
hwspinlock.txt
init.txt
initrd.txt
intel_txt.txt
Intel-IOMMU.txt iommu/vt-d: Fix link to Intel IOMMU Specification 2016-01-29 12:32:12 +01:00
io_ordering.txt
io-mapping.txt
iostats.txt
IPMI.txt ipmi watchdog : add panic_wdt_timeout parameter 2015-11-16 06:28:43 -06:00
IRQ-affinity.txt
IRQ-domain.txt
IRQ.txt
irqflags-tracing.txt
isapnp.txt
java.txt
kasan.txt mm, slub, kasan: enable user tracking by default with KASAN=y 2015-11-05 19:34:48 -08:00
kcov.txt kernel: add kcov code coverage 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
kernel-doc-nano-HOWTO.txt
kernel-docs.txt Documentation: translations: update linux cross reference link 2016-01-11 18:26:58 -07:00
kernel-parameters.txt Merge branch 'mm-pkeys-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2016-03-20 19:08:56 -07:00
kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt irq_poll: make blk-iopoll available outside the block layer 2015-12-11 11:52:24 -08:00
kmemcheck.txt
kmemleak.txt
kobject.txt
kprobes.txt
kref.txt
kselftest.txt Documentation: kselftest: Remove duplicate word 2016-03-09 15:33:38 -07:00
ldm.txt
local_ops.txt
lockup-watchdogs.txt kernel/watchdog.c: add sysctl knob hardlockup_panic 2015-11-05 19:34:48 -08:00
logo.gif
logo.txt
lzo.txt
magic-number.txt
mailbox.txt
Makefile spi: Move spi code from Documentation to tools 2015-11-23 14:54:01 +00:00
ManagementStyle
md-cluster.txt md-cluster: update the documentation 2016-01-06 11:39:06 +11:00
md.txt
memory-barriers.txt virtio: barrier rework+fixes 2016-01-18 16:44:24 -08:00
memory-hotplug.txt memory-hotplug: add automatic onlining policy for the newly added memory 2016-03-15 16:55:16 -07:00
men-chameleon-bus.txt
module-signing.txt modsign: Fix documentation on module signing enforcement parameter. 2016-03-12 01:48:11 -07:00
mono.txt
nommu-mmap.txt
ntb.txt
numastat.txt
oops-tracing.txt
padata.txt
parport-lowlevel.txt
parport.txt
percpu-rw-semaphore.txt
phy.txt
pi-futex.txt
pinctrl.txt
pnp.txt
preempt-locking.txt
printk-formats.txt mm, printk: introduce new format string for flags 2016-03-15 16:55:16 -07:00
pwm.txt
ramoops.txt
rbtree.txt
remoteproc.txt
rfkill.txt rfkill: Add documentation about LED triggers 2016-02-24 09:13:12 +01:00
robust-futex-ABI.txt
robust-futexes.txt
rpmsg.txt
rtc.txt rtc: implement a sysfs interface for clock offset 2016-03-14 17:08:16 +01:00
SAK.txt
SecurityBugs
serial-console.txt
sgi-ioc4.txt
SM501.txt
smsc_ece1099.txt
sparse.txt
stable_api_nonsense.txt
stable_kernel_rules.txt stable_kernel_rules.txt: Remove extra space after Cc: 2015-11-20 16:54:57 -07:00
static-keys.txt
SubmitChecklist
SubmittingDrivers
SubmittingPatches SubmittingPatches: fix spelling of "git send-email" 2016-01-25 12:30:18 -07:00
svga.txt
sysfs-rules.txt
sysrq.txt
this_cpu_ops.txt
ubsan.txt UBSAN: run-time undefined behavior sanity checker 2016-01-20 17:09:18 -08:00
unaligned-memory-access.txt
unicode.txt
unshare.txt
vfio.txt
VGA-softcursor.txt
vgaarbiter.txt
video-output.txt
vme_api.txt
volatile-considered-harmful.txt
workqueue.txt
xillybus.txt
xz.txt
zorro.txt