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authorJinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com>2026-09-08 15:37:42 +0800
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2026-09-17 09:48:42 +0200
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tree73fef824f9a846cf935869d0dbc5070ef6e2f741 /Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/debug.rst
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x86/kprobes: Fix crash when probing CS CALL instructionsgrafted
When using eBPF to probe CS CALL instructions within a function, a crash can be triggered. The eBPF tool probes offset 257 of the __hrtimer_run_queues() function: <__hrtimer_run_queues+249>: nopl 0x0(%rax,%rax,1) <__hrtimer_run_queues+254>: mov %r14,%rdi <__hrtimer_run_queues+257>: cs call <__x86_indirect_thunk_r12> <__hrtimer_run_queues+263>: mov %eax,%r12d <__hrtimer_run_queues+266>: xchg %ax,%ax <__hrtimer_run_queues+268>: mov %r13,%rdi Which triggers this crash: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 00000000000f41c9 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Kdump: loaded Tainted: P RIP: 0010:__hrtimer_run_queues+0x106/0x230 Note that __hrtimer_run_queues+0x106 is __hrtimer_run_queues+262, which is at the 6th byte of the above CS CALL instruction. Since the CS CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, the exception occurred in the middle of that call instruction. The root cause is that when using eBPF tools to probe in the middle of a function, a kprobe with INT3 is used as the underlying implementation. During single-step emulation of the original CALL instruction, int3_emulate_call() assumes that the probed CALL instruction is 5 bytes long. However, the actual CS-prefixed CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, so it constructs an incorrect exception return address. When the CPU returns from the kprobe handler, the next instruction to be executed is at the address of the last byte of that CS CALL instruction. Coincidentally, starting from that address, the CPU fetches and decodes a completely different instruction, which ultimately triggers a kernel crash. Fix the issue by using the actual instruction length obtained from the instruction decoder when constructing the exception return address, rather than relying on the hardcoded CALL_INSN_SIZE macro. [ mingo: Refined the changelog ] Fixes: 6256e668b7af ("x86/kprobes: Use int3 instead of debug trap for single-step") Suggested-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Jinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Acked-by: Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260908073742.GA10517@didi-ThinkCentre-M920t-N000
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+================
+/proc/sys/debug/
+================
+
+These files show up in ``/proc/sys/debug/``, depending on the
+kernel configuration:
+
+.. contents:: :local:
+
+exception-trace
+===============
+
+This flag controls whether the kernel prints information about unhandled
+signals (like segmentation faults) to the kernel log (``dmesg``).
+
+- ``0``: Unhandled signals are not traced.
+- ``1``: Information about unhandled signals is printed.
+
+The default value is ``1`` on most architectures (like x86, MIPS, RISC-V),
+but it is ``0`` on **arm64**.
+
+The actual information printed and the context provided varies
+significantly depending on the CPU architecture. For example:
+
+- On **x86**, it typically prints the instruction pointer (IP), error
+ code, and address that caused a page fault.
+- On **PowerPC**, it may print the next instruction pointer (NIP),
+ link register (LR), and other relevant registers.
+
+When enabled, this feature is often rate-limited to prevent the kernel
+log from being flooded during a crash loop.
+
+kprobes-optimization
+====================
+
+This flag enables or disables the optimization of Kprobes on certain
+architectures (like x86).
+
+- ``0``: Kprobes optimization is turned off.
+- ``1``: Kprobes optimization is turned on (default).
+
+For more details on Kprobes and its optimization, please refer to
+Documentation/trace/kprobes.rst.
+
+Copyright (c) 2026, Shubham Chakraborty <chakrabortyshubham66@gmail.com>
+
+For general info and legal blurb, please look in
+Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/index.rst.
+
+.. See scripts/check-sysctl-docs to keep this up to date:
+.. scripts/check-sysctl-docs -vtable="debug" \
+.. $(git grep -l register_sysctl_)