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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/filesystems/dnotify.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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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+============================
+Linux Directory Notification
+============================
+
+ Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
+
+The intention of directory notification is to allow user applications
+to be notified when a directory, or any of the files in it, are changed.
+The basic mechanism involves the application registering for notification
+on a directory using a fcntl(2) call and the notifications themselves
+being delivered using signals.
+
+The application decides which "events" it wants to be notified about.
+The currently defined events are:
+
+ ========= =====================================================
+ DN_ACCESS A file in the directory was accessed (read)
+ DN_MODIFY A file in the directory was modified (write,truncate)
+ DN_CREATE A file was created in the directory
+ DN_DELETE A file was unlinked from directory
+ DN_RENAME A file in the directory was renamed
+ DN_ATTRIB A file in the directory had its attributes
+ changed (chmod,chown)
+ ========= =====================================================
+
+Usually, the application must reregister after each notification, but
+if DN_MULTISHOT is or'ed with the event mask, then the registration will
+remain until explicitly removed (by registering for no events).
+
+By default, SIGIO will be delivered to the process and no other useful
+information. However, if the F_SETSIG fcntl(2) call is used to let the
+kernel know which signal to deliver, a siginfo structure will be passed to
+the signal handler and the si_fd member of that structure will contain the
+file descriptor associated with the directory in which the event occurred.
+
+Preferably the application will choose one of the real time signals
+(SIGRTMIN + <n>) so that the notifications may be queued. This is
+especially important if DN_MULTISHOT is specified. Note that SIGRTMIN
+is often blocked, so it is better to use (at least) SIGRTMIN + 1.
+
+Implementation expectations (features and bugs :-))
+---------------------------------------------------
+
+The notification should work for any local access to files even if the
+actual file system is on a remote server. This implies that remote
+access to files served by local user mode servers should be notified.
+Also, remote accesses to files served by a local kernel NFS server should
+be notified.
+
+In order to make the impact on the file system code as small as possible,
+the problem of hard links to files has been ignored. So if a file (x)
+exists in two directories (a and b) then a change to the file using the
+name "a/x" should be notified to a program expecting notifications on
+directory "a", but will not be notified to one expecting notifications on
+directory "b".
+
+Also, files that are unlinked, will still cause notifications in the
+last directory that they were linked to.
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+
+Dnotify is controlled via the CONFIG_DNOTIFY configuration option. When
+disabled, fcntl(fd, F_NOTIFY, ...) will return -EINVAL.
+
+Example
+-------
+See tools/testing/selftests/filesystems/dnotify_test.c for an example.
+
+NOTE
+----
+Beginning with Linux 2.6.13, dnotify has been replaced by inotify.
+See Documentation/filesystems/inotify.rst for more information on it.