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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/mm/overcommit-accounting.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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+=====================
+Overcommit Accounting
+=====================
+
+The Linux kernel supports the following overcommit handling modes
+
+0
+ Heuristic overcommit handling. Obvious overcommits of address
+ space are refused. Used for a typical system. It ensures a
+ seriously wild allocation fails while allowing overcommit to
+ reduce swap usage. This is the default.
+
+1
+ Always overcommit. Appropriate for some scientific
+ applications. Classic example is code using sparse arrays and
+ just relying on the virtual memory consisting almost entirely
+ of zero pages.
+
+2
+ Don't overcommit. The total address space commit for the
+ system is not permitted to exceed swap + a configurable amount
+ (default is 50%) of physical RAM. Depending on the amount you
+ use, in most situations this means a process will not be
+ killed while accessing pages but will receive errors on memory
+ allocation as appropriate.
+
+ Useful for applications that want to guarantee their memory
+ allocations will be available in the future without having to
+ initialize every page.
+
+The overcommit policy is set via the sysctl ``vm.overcommit_memory``.
+
+The overcommit amount can be set via ``vm.overcommit_ratio`` (percentage)
+or ``vm.overcommit_kbytes`` (absolute value). These only have an effect
+when ``vm.overcommit_memory`` is set to 2.
+
+The current overcommit limit and amount committed are viewable in
+``/proc/meminfo`` as CommitLimit and Committed_AS respectively.
+
+Gotchas
+=======
+
+The C language stack growth does an implicit mremap. If you want absolute
+guarantees and run close to the edge you MUST mmap your stack for the
+largest size you think you will need. For typical stack usage this does
+not matter much but it's a corner case if you really really care
+
+In mode 2 the MAP_NORESERVE flag is ignored.
+
+
+How It Works
+============
+
+The overcommit is based on the following rules
+
+For a file backed map
+ | SHARED or READ-only - 0 cost (the file is the map not swap)
+ | PRIVATE WRITABLE - size of mapping per instance
+
+For an anonymous or ``/dev/zero`` map
+ | SHARED - size of mapping
+ | PRIVATE READ-only - 0 cost (but of little use)
+ | PRIVATE WRITABLE - size of mapping per instance
+
+Additional accounting
+ | Pages made writable copies by mmap
+ | shmfs memory drawn from the same pool
+
+Status
+======
+
+* We account mmap memory mappings
+* We account mprotect changes in commit
+* We account mremap changes in size
+* We account brk
+* We account munmap
+* We report the commit status in /proc
+* Account and check on fork
+* Review stack handling/building on exec
+* SHMfs accounting
+* Implement actual limit enforcement
+
+To Do
+=====
+* Account ptrace pages (this is hard)