From 034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Linus Torvalds Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 09:22:00 -0700 Subject: Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt: - Fix error output of boot instance creation failure Currently if a boot instance creation fails, instead of printing out the name of the instance that failed, it prints "(null)". That is because it prints "cur_str" that had already been processed by strsep(). Print the saved name instead. While at it, print the error code of the failure. - Fix use-after-free for same named historgrams Histograms can be named so that they can be used in multiple events. But if the named histogram has a variable attached, the second event that uses the named histogram which duplicates it and needs to free the original after duplication leaves the old variable in place and still visible. If another histogram uses than variable, it will use the stale one which will try to reference the freed duplicate histogram and crash the kernel. Free the duplicate variables along with the duplicated histogram data. - Check return value of kthread_run() in event self test The events self tests uses a kthread for testing but does not check if it succeeded in creating a kthread. If the kthread creation were to fail, the code will still try to call kthread_stop() on the error returned. - Fix race between reading trace_pipe and updating subbuffer size If a user is reading the trace_pipe file at the same time they update the ring buffer sub-buffer size, can cause the trace_pipe read to read stale data. Add trace_access_lock() around updating the ring buffer sub-buffer size. - Fix eventfs_inode on failure path in creation of the events directory In the creation of the "events" directory, if after allocating the eventfs_inode a failure is detected, it calls cleanup_ei() which calls free_ei(). The free_ei() will test if eventfs_inode being freed has no children. It is a bug if it does. But on the failure case of the creation of the "events" directory, the children lists have not yet been initialized and the free will trigger a warning because list_empty() on an uninitialized list returns false. Move the initialization into init_ei() where it makes more sense and makes sure that a created eventfs_inode has its lists initialized upon creation. - Check return value of kthread_run() in ftrace direct sample code The sample code that shows how to use the ftrace direct calls does not test the return of kthread_run() to see if it succeeds. Return a failure if the kthread_run() doesn't succeed. - Clear user events state on fork in case of alloc failure On fork, the child gets a pointer to the parent's user events state. It makes a copy of it then updates the child's pointer to it. But if the allocation fails, the duplication function leaves the child with a pointer to its parent's descriptor. When the child cleans up its data, it will free the parent's descriptor while the parent is still using it. In the duplication function, set the child's user_event_mm to NULL before testing if the allocation succeeded, and when it exits it will not free the parent's descriptor. - Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap simple_ring_buffer_swap_reader_page() starts with retry set to 8 and post-decrements it only after a failed link replacement. On the final attempt, a successful replacement leaves retry at zero, while a failed replacement leaves it at -1. But the check for success expects the retry value to be non-zero and exits with an error on zero. This is the opposite result. Fix it. - Fail nicely when the remote swap_reader_page() returns an error Currently, if the swap_reader_page() of a remote buffer fails, it triggers a WARN_ON_ONCE() and continues normally. Instead, have it exit with an error and a pr_warn() print instead of a full WARNING. * tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: ring-buffer: Stop remote reader update when page swap fails tracing: Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap tracing/user_events: Clear copied tracing state before fork duplication samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-multi-modify samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-modify eventfs: Initialize ei->children and ei->list in init_ei() tracing: Fix use-after-free in trace_pipe read on sub-buffer order change tracing: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop() tracing: Fix use-after-free with same-name named triggers tracing: Fix logged instance name on creation failure --- Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst | 182 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 182 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst (limited to 'Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst') diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1619e5e5c --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/testing-overview.rst @@ -0,0 +1,182 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +==================== +Kernel Testing Guide +==================== + + +There are a number of different tools for testing the Linux kernel, so knowing +when to use each of them can be a challenge. This document provides a rough +overview of their differences, and how they fit together. + + +Writing and Running Tests +========================= + +The bulk of kernel tests are written using either the kselftest or KUnit +frameworks. These both provide infrastructure to help make running tests and +groups of tests easier, as well as providing helpers to aid in writing new +tests. + +If you're looking to verify the behaviour of the Kernel — particularly specific +parts of the kernel — then you'll want to use KUnit or kselftest. + + +The Difference Between KUnit and kselftest +------------------------------------------ + +KUnit (Documentation/dev-tools/kunit/index.rst) is an entirely in-kernel system +for "white box" testing: because test code is part of the kernel, it can access +internal structures and functions which aren't exposed to userspace. + +KUnit tests therefore are best written against small, self-contained parts +of the kernel, which can be tested in isolation. This aligns well with the +concept of 'unit' testing. + +For example, a KUnit test might test an individual kernel function (or even a +single codepath through a function, such as an error handling case), rather +than a feature as a whole. + +This also makes KUnit tests very fast to build and run, allowing them to be +run frequently as part of the development process. + +There is a KUnit test style guide which may give further pointers in +Documentation/dev-tools/kunit/style.rst + + +kselftest (Documentation/dev-tools/kselftest.rst), on the other hand, is +largely implemented in userspace, and tests are normal userspace scripts or +programs. + +This makes it easier to write more complicated tests, or tests which need to +manipulate the overall system state more (e.g., spawning processes, etc.). +However, it's not possible to call kernel functions directly from kselftest. +This means that only kernel functionality which is exposed to userspace somehow +(e.g. by a syscall, device, filesystem, etc.) can be tested with kselftest. To +work around this, some tests include a companion kernel module which exposes +more information or functionality. If a test runs mostly or entirely within the +kernel, however, KUnit may be the more appropriate tool. + +kselftest is therefore suited well to tests of whole features, as these will +expose an interface to userspace, which can be tested, but not implementation +details. This aligns well with 'system' or 'end-to-end' testing. + +For example, all new system calls should be accompanied by kselftest tests. + +Code Coverage Tools +=================== + +The Linux Kernel supports two different code coverage measurement tools. These +can be used to verify that a test is executing particular functions or lines +of code. This is useful for determining how much of the kernel is being tested, +and for finding corner-cases which are not covered by the appropriate test. + +Documentation/dev-tools/gcov.rst is GCC's coverage testing tool, which can be +used with the kernel to get global or per-module coverage. Unlike KCOV, it +does not record per-task coverage. Coverage data can be read from debugfs, +and interpreted using the usual gcov tooling. + +Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst is a feature which can be built in to the +kernel to allow capturing coverage on a per-task level. It's therefore useful +for fuzzing and other situations where information about code executed during, +for example, a single syscall is useful. + + +Dynamic Analysis Tools +====================== + +The kernel also supports a number of dynamic analysis tools, which attempt to +detect classes of issues when they occur in a running kernel. These typically +each look for a different class of bugs, such as invalid memory accesses, +concurrency issues such as data races, or other undefined behaviour like +integer overflows. + +Some of these tools are listed below: + +* kmemleak detects possible memory leaks. See + Documentation/dev-tools/kmemleak.rst +* KASAN detects invalid memory accesses such as out-of-bounds and + use-after-free errors. See Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst +* UBSAN detects behaviour that is undefined by the C standard, like integer + overflows. See Documentation/dev-tools/ubsan.rst +* KCSAN detects data races. See Documentation/dev-tools/kcsan.rst +* KFENCE is a low-overhead detector of memory issues, which is much faster than + KASAN and can be used in production. See Documentation/dev-tools/kfence.rst +* lockdep is a locking correctness validator. See + Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst +* Runtime Verification (RV) supports checking specific behaviours for a given + subsystem. See Documentation/trace/rv/runtime-verification.rst +* There are several other pieces of debug instrumentation in the kernel, many + of which can be found in lib/Kconfig.debug + +These tools tend to test the kernel as a whole, and do not "pass" like +kselftest or KUnit tests. They can be combined with KUnit or kselftest by +running tests on a kernel with these tools enabled: you can then be sure +that none of these errors are occurring during the test. + +Some of these tools integrate with KUnit or kselftest and will +automatically fail tests if an issue is detected. + +Static Analysis Tools +===================== + +In addition to testing a running kernel, one can also analyze kernel source code +directly (**at compile time**) using **static analysis** tools. The tools +commonly used in the kernel allow one to inspect the whole source tree or just +specific files within it. They make it easier to detect and fix problems during +the development process. + +Sparse can help test the kernel by performing type-checking, lock checking, +value range checking, in addition to reporting various errors and warnings while +examining the code. See the Documentation/dev-tools/sparse.rst documentation +page for details on how to use it. + +Smatch extends Sparse and provides additional checks for programming logic +mistakes such as missing breaks in switch statements, unused return values on +error checking, forgetting to set an error code in the return of an error path, +etc. Smatch also has tests against more serious issues such as integer +overflows, null pointer dereferences, and memory leaks. See the project page at +http://smatch.sourceforge.net/. + +Coccinelle is another static analyzer at our disposal. Coccinelle is often used +to aid refactoring and collateral evolution of source code, but it can also help +to avoid certain bugs that occur in common code patterns. The types of tests +available include API tests, tests for correct usage of kernel iterators, checks +for the soundness of free operations, analysis of locking behavior, and further +tests known to help keep consistent kernel usage. See the +Documentation/dev-tools/coccinelle.rst documentation page for details. + +Beware, though, that static analysis tools suffer from **false positives**. +Errors and warns need to be evaluated carefully before attempting to fix them. + +When to use Sparse and Smatch +----------------------------- + +Sparse does type checking, such as verifying that annotated variables do not +cause endianness bugs, detecting places that use ``__user`` pointers improperly, +and analyzing the compatibility of symbol initializers. + +Smatch does flow analysis and, if allowed to build the function database, it +also does cross function analysis. Smatch tries to answer questions like where +is this buffer allocated? How big is it? Can this index be controlled by the +user? Is this variable larger than that variable? + +It's generally easier to write checks in Smatch than it is to write checks in +Sparse. Nevertheless, there are some overlaps between Sparse and Smatch checks. + +Strong points of Smatch and Coccinelle +-------------------------------------- + +Coccinelle is probably the easiest for writing checks. It works before the +pre-processor so it's easier to check for bugs in macros using Coccinelle. +Coccinelle also creates patches for you, which no other tool does. + +For example, with Coccinelle you can do a mass conversion from +``kmalloc(x * size, GFP_KERNEL)`` to ``kmalloc_array(x, size, GFP_KERNEL)``, and +that's really useful. If you just created a Smatch warning and try to push the +work of converting on to the maintainers they would be annoyed. You'd have to +argue about each warning if can really overflow or not. + +Coccinelle does no analysis of variable values, which is the strong point of +Smatch. On the other hand, Coccinelle allows you to do simple things in a simple +way. -- cgit v1.3.1