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| author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-24 08:46:03 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-24 08:46:03 -0700 |
| commit | cf9610f9116d55c5a66ef9f1faecacabd93a9322 (patch) | |
| tree | 757a3d280760c654767631cab5ad8af2d86d1848 /Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst | |
| download | linux-stable-cf9610f9116d55c5a66ef9f1faecacabd93a9322.tar.gz linux-stable-cf9610f9116d55c5a66ef9f1faecacabd93a9322.zip | |
Merge tag 'pinctrl-v7.3-1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/linusw/linux-pinctrlgrafted
Pull pin control updates from Linus Walleij:
"Core changes:
- Use the non-blocking mux_state_try_select() in the generic MUX pin
control back-end
- Free pin maps on pinctrl_generic_to_map() failure in the core
helpers
New hardware pin control:
- Qualcomm Maili TLMM SoC, PMG1110 PMIC, and Eliza LPASS LPI TLMM SoC
(this is for the low power audio, LPASS = Low Power Audio SubSystem
portions)
- Upboard support on top of the Intel pin controller
- Apple T6030 and T6031 support (just compatible strings)
- Samsung Exynos 8855 SoC
- Mediatek MT6858 SoC
- Rockchip RK3308B and RV1106 SoCs
- Airoha EN7523 and AN7563 SoCs
Improvements:
- Qualcomm TLMM GPIOs are unconditionally marked as wakeup capable
- Qualcomm improvements on top of the Qualcomm PDC (power domain
controller) irqchip improvements from tglx:s tree
- Qualcomm IPQ806x and IPQ9650 non-urgent pin grop fixups
- The NPCM8xx driver has been put into shape fixing many pin and
group definitions
- Some non-urgent Tegra 264 pin assignments are fixed up
- Some non-urgent fixups to Airoha AN7581 and AN7583 registers and
pin assignments, missing features etc"
* tag 'pinctrl-v7.3-1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/linusw/linux-pinctrl: (130 commits)
dt-bindings: pinctrl: Convert TI DA850 pupd to DT schema
pinctrl: meson: sync some modify from A4
pinctrl: meson: a4: Add input enable pin configuration
pinctrl: realtek: rtd1625: remove unused group name spdif_sel
pinctrl: realtek: rtd1625: fix base_bit for VE4 GPIO 13
dt-bindings: pinctrl: microchip,pic32mzda-pinctrl: Convert to DT schema
Revert "Merge branch 'ib-rsk7204' into devel"
pinctrl: rockchip: Add RV1106 pinctrl support
dt-bindings: pinctrl: rockchip: Add RV1106 compatible
pinctrl: rockchip: Decode drive strength in the get function
pinctrl: fix PINCTRL_GENERIC_MUX not always being selectable
pinctrl: airoha: add support of an7563 SoC
dt-bindings: pinctrl: airoha: add support of an7563 pin controller
pinctrl: airoha: try to find chip scu node by phandle first
pinctrl: airoha: add support of en7523 SoC
dt-bindings: pinctrl: airoha: add support of en7523 pin controller
pinctrl: airoha: an7583: add support for olt pinmux
pinctrl: airoha: an7583: add support for pon_alt pinmux
pinctrl: airoha: an7583: add support for npu_uart pinmux
dt-bindings: pinctrl: airoha: an7583: add missed features
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst | 153 |
1 files changed, 153 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst b/Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5bc0f7cee --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/mm/vmalloced-kernel-stacks.rst @@ -0,0 +1,153 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +===================================== +Virtually Mapped Kernel Stack Support +===================================== + +:Author: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org> + +.. contents:: :local: + +Overview +-------- + +This is a compilation of information from the code and original patch +series that introduced the `Virtually Mapped Kernel Stacks feature +<https://lwn.net/Articles/694348/>` + +Introduction +------------ + +Kernel stack overflows are often hard to debug and make the kernel +susceptible to exploits. Problems could show up at a later time making +it difficult to isolate and root-cause. + +Virtually mapped kernel stacks with guard pages cause kernel stack +overflows to be caught immediately rather than causing difficult to +diagnose corruptions. + +HAVE_ARCH_VMAP_STACK and VMAP_STACK configuration options enable +support for virtually mapped stacks with guard pages. This feature +causes reliable faults when the stack overflows. The usability of +the stack trace after overflow and response to the overflow itself +is architecture dependent. + +.. note:: + As of this writing, arm64, powerpc, riscv, s390, um, and x86 have + support for VMAP_STACK. + +HAVE_ARCH_VMAP_STACK +-------------------- + +Architectures that can support Virtually Mapped Kernel Stacks should +enable this bool configuration option. The requirements are: + +- vmalloc space must be large enough to hold many kernel stacks. This + may rule out many 32-bit architectures. +- Stacks in vmalloc space need to work reliably. For example, if + vmap page tables are created on demand, either this mechanism + needs to work while the stack points to a virtual address with + unpopulated page tables or arch code (switch_to() and switch_mm(), + most likely) needs to ensure that the stack's page table entries + are populated before running on a possibly unpopulated stack. +- If the stack overflows into a guard page, something reasonable + should happen. The definition of "reasonable" is flexible, but + instantly rebooting without logging anything would be unfriendly. + +VMAP_STACK +---------- + +When enabled, the VMAP_STACK bool configuration option allocates virtually +mapped task stacks. This option depends on HAVE_ARCH_VMAP_STACK. + +- Enable this if you want the use virtually-mapped kernel stacks + with guard pages. This causes kernel stack overflows to be caught + immediately rather than causing difficult-to-diagnose corruption. + +.. note:: + + Using this feature with KASAN requires architecture support + for backing virtual mappings with real shadow memory, and + KASAN_VMALLOC must be enabled. + +.. note:: + + VMAP_STACK is enabled, it is not possible to run DMA on stack + allocated data. + +Kernel configuration options and dependencies keep changing. Refer to +the latest code base: + +`Kconfig <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/Kconfig>` + +Allocation +----------- + +When a new kernel thread is created, a thread stack is allocated from +virtually contiguous memory pages from the page level allocator. These +pages are mapped into contiguous kernel virtual space with PAGE_KERNEL +protections. + +alloc_thread_stack_node() calls __vmalloc_node_range() to allocate stack +with PAGE_KERNEL protections. + +- Allocated stacks are cached and later reused by new threads, so memcg + accounting is performed manually on assigning/releasing stacks to tasks. + Hence, __vmalloc_node_range is called without __GFP_ACCOUNT. +- vm_struct is cached to be able to find when thread free is initiated + in interrupt context. free_thread_stack() can be called in interrupt + context. +- On arm64, all VMAP's stacks need to have the same alignment to ensure + that VMAP'd stack overflow detection works correctly. Arch specific + vmap stack allocator takes care of this detail. +- This does not address interrupt stacks - according to the original patch + +Thread stack allocation is initiated from clone(), fork(), vfork(), +kernel_thread() via kernel_clone(). These are a few hints for searching +the code base to understand when and how a thread stack is allocated. + +Bulk of the code is in: +`kernel/fork.c <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/kernel/fork.c>`. + +stack_vm_area pointer in task_struct keeps track of the virtually allocated +stack and a non-null stack_vm_area pointer serves as an indication that the +virtually mapped kernel stacks are enabled. + +:: + + struct vm_struct *stack_vm_area; + +Stack overflow handling +----------------------- + +Leading and trailing guard pages help detect stack overflows. When the stack +overflows into the guard pages, handlers have to be careful not to overflow +the stack again. When handlers are called, it is likely that very little +stack space is left. + +On x86, this is done by handling the page fault indicating the kernel +stack overflow on the double-fault stack. + +Testing VMAP allocation with guard pages +---------------------------------------- + +How do we ensure that VMAP_STACK is actually allocating with a leading +and trailing guard page? The following lkdtm tests can help detect any +regressions. + +:: + + void lkdtm_STACK_GUARD_PAGE_LEADING() + void lkdtm_STACK_GUARD_PAGE_TRAILING() + +Conclusions +----------- + +- A percpu cache of vmalloced stacks appears to be a bit faster than a + high-order stack allocation, at least when the cache hits. +- THREAD_INFO_IN_TASK gets rid of arch-specific thread_info entirely and + simply embed the thread_info (containing only flags) and 'int cpu' into + task_struct. +- The thread stack can be freed as soon as the task is dead (without + waiting for RCU) and then, if vmapped stacks are in use, cache the + entire stack for reuse on the same cpu. |
