History log of /linux-master/Documentation/dev-tools/kfence.rst
Revision Date Author Comments
# 737b6a10 22-Mar-2022 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: allow use of a deferrable timer

Allow the use of a deferrable timer, which does not force CPU wake-ups
when the system is idle. A consequence is that the sample interval
becomes very unpredictable, to the point that it is not guaranteed that
the KFENCE KUnit test still passes.

Nevertheless, on power-constrained systems this may be preferable, so
let's give the user the option should they accept the above trade-off.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20220308141415.3168078-1-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# 4f612ed3 05-Nov-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: default to dynamic branch instead of static keys mode

We have observed that on very large machines with newer CPUs, the static
key/branch switching delay is on the order of milliseconds. This is due
to the required broadcast IPIs, which simply does not scale well to
hundreds of CPUs (cores). If done too frequently, this can adversely
affect tail latencies of various workloads.

One workaround is to increase the sample interval to several seconds,
while decreasing sampled allocation coverage, but the problem still
exists and could still increase tail latencies.

As already noted in the Kconfig help text, there are trade-offs: at
lower sample intervals the dynamic branch results in better performance;
however, at very large sample intervals, the static keys mode can result
in better performance -- careful benchmarking is recommended.

Our initial benchmarking showed that with large enough sample intervals
and workloads stressing the allocator, the static keys mode was slightly
better. Evaluating and observing the possible system-wide side-effects
of the static-key-switching induced broadcast IPIs, however, was a blind
spot (in particular on large machines with 100s of cores).

Therefore, a major downside of the static keys mode is, unfortunately,
that it is hard to predict performance on new system architectures and
topologies, but also making conclusions about performance of new
workloads based on a limited set of benchmarks.

Most distributions will simply select the defaults, while targeting a
large variety of different workloads and system architectures. As such,
the better default is CONFIG_KFENCE_STATIC_KEYS=n, and re-enabling it is
only recommended after careful evaluation.

For reference, on x86-64 the condition in kfence_alloc() generates
exactly
2 instructions in the kmem_cache_alloc() fast-path:

| ...
| cmpl $0x0,0x1a8021c(%rip) # ffffffff82d560d0 <kfence_allocation_gate>
| je ffffffff812d6003 <kmem_cache_alloc+0x243>
| ...

which, given kfence_allocation_gate is infrequently modified, should be
well predicted by most CPUs.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20211019102524.2807208-2-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Cc: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# 5cc906b4 05-Nov-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: add note to documentation about skipping covered allocations

Add a note briefly mentioning the new policy about "skipping currently
covered allocations if pool close to full." Since this has a notable
impact on KFENCE's bug-detection ability on systems with large uptimes,
it is worth pointing out the feature.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210923104803.2620285-5-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Acked-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Aleksandr Nogikh <nogikh@google.com>
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Taras Madan <tarasmadan@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# 4bbf04aa 07-Sep-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: show cpu and timestamp in alloc/free info

Record cpu and timestamp on allocations and frees, and show them in
reports. Upon an error, this can help correlate earlier messages in the
kernel log via allocation and free timestamps.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210714175312.2947941-1-elver@google.com
Suggested-by: Joern Engel <joern@purestorage.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Acked-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Acked-by: Joern Engel <joern@purestorage.com>
Cc: Yuanyuan Zhong <yzhong@purestorage.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# 35beccf0 25-Feb-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: report sensitive information based on no_hash_pointers

We cannot rely on CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL to decide if we're running a "debug
kernel" where we can safely show potentially sensitive information in the
kernel log.

Instead, simply rely on the newly introduced "no_hash_pointers" to print
unhashed kernel pointers, as well as decide if our reports can include
other potentially sensitive information such as registers and corrupted
bytes.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210223082043.1972742-1-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Cc: Timur Tabi <timur@kernel.org>
Cc: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# bc8fbc5f 25-Feb-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence: add test suite

Add KFENCE test suite, testing various error detection scenarios. Makes
use of KUnit for test organization. Since KFENCE's interface to obtain
error reports is via the console, the test verifies that KFENCE outputs
expected reports to the console.

[elver@google.com: fix typo in test]
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/X9lHQExmHGvETxY4@elver.google.com
[elver@google.com: show access type in report]
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210111091544.3287013-2-elver@google.com

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20201103175841.3495947-9-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Co-developed-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@virtuozzo.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Christopher Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Joern Engel <joern@purestorage.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: SeongJae Park <sjpark@amazon.de>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>


# 10efe55f 25-Feb-2021 Marco Elver <elver@google.com>

kfence, Documentation: add KFENCE documentation

Add KFENCE documentation in dev-tools/kfence.rst, and add to index.

[elver@google.com: add missing copyright header to documentation]
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210118092159.145934-4-elver@google.com

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20201103175841.3495947-8-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Co-developed-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@virtuozzo.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Christopher Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Joern Engel <joern@purestorage.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: SeongJae Park <sjpark@amazon.de>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>