diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/kmemcheck.txt | 773 |
1 files changed, 773 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/kmemcheck.txt b/Documentation/kmemcheck.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..363044609dad --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/kmemcheck.txt @@ -0,0 +1,773 @@ +GETTING STARTED WITH KMEMCHECK +============================== + +Vegard Nossum <vegardno@ifi.uio.no> + + +Contents +======== +0. Introduction +1. Downloading +2. Configuring and compiling +3. How to use +3.1. Booting +3.2. Run-time enable/disable +3.3. Debugging +3.4. Annotating false positives +4. Reporting errors +5. Technical description + + +0. Introduction +=============== + +kmemcheck is a debugging feature for the Linux Kernel. More specifically, it +is a dynamic checker that detects and warns about some uses of uninitialized +memory. + +Userspace programmers might be familiar with Valgrind's memcheck. The main +difference between memcheck and kmemcheck is that memcheck works for userspace +programs only, and kmemcheck works for the kernel only. The implementations +are of course vastly different. Because of this, kmemcheck is not as accurate +as memcheck, but it turns out to be good enough in practice to discover real +programmer errors that the compiler is not able to find through static +analysis. + +Enabling kmemcheck on a kernel will probably slow it down to the extent that +the machine will not be usable for normal workloads such as e.g. an +interactive desktop. kmemcheck will also cause the kernel to use about twice +as much memory as normal. For this reason, kmemcheck is strictly a debugging +feature. + + +1. Downloading +============== + +kmemcheck can only be downloaded using git. If you want to write patches +against the current code, you should use the kmemcheck development branch of +the tip tree. It is also possible to use the linux-next tree, which also +includes the latest version of kmemcheck. + +Assuming that you've already cloned the linux-2.6.git repository, all you +have to do is add the -tip tree as a remote, like this: + + $ git remote add tip git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip.git + +To actually download the tree, fetch the remote: + + $ git fetch tip + +And to check out a new local branch with the kmemcheck code: + + $ git checkout -b kmemcheck tip/kmemcheck + +General instructions for the -tip tree can be found here: +http://people.redhat.com/mingo/tip.git/readme.txt + + +2. Configuring and compiling +============================ + +kmemcheck only works for the x86 (both 32- and 64-bit) platform. A number of +configuration variables must have specific settings in order for the kmemcheck +menu to even appear in "menuconfig". These are: + + o CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE=n + + This option is located under "General setup" / "Optimize for size". + + Without this, gcc will use certain optimizations that usually lead to + false positive warnings from kmemcheck. An example of this is a 16-bit + field in a struct, where gcc may load 32 bits, then discard the upper + 16 bits. kmemcheck sees only the 32-bit load, and may trigger a + warning for the upper 16 bits (if they're uninitialized). + + o CONFIG_SLAB=y or CONFIG_SLUB=y + + This option is located under "General setup" / "Choose SLAB + allocator". + + o CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER=n + + This option is located under "Kernel hacking" / "Tracers" / "Kernel + Function Tracer" + + When function tracing is compiled in, gcc emits a call to another + function at the beginning of every function. This means that when the + page fault handler is called, the ftrace framework will be called + before kmemcheck has had a chance to handle the fault. If ftrace then + modifies memory that was tracked by kmemcheck, the result is an + endless recursive page fault. + + o CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC=n + + This option is located under "Kernel hacking" / "Debug page memory + allocations". + +In addition, I highly recommend turning on CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y. This is also +located under "Kernel hacking". With this, you will be able to get line number +information from the kmemcheck warnings, which is extremely valuable in +debugging a problem. This option is not mandatory, however, because it slows +down the compilation process and produces a much bigger kernel image. + +Now the kmemcheck menu should be visible (under "Kernel hacking" / "kmemcheck: +trap use of uninitialized memory"). Here follows a description of the +kmemcheck configuration variables: + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK + + This must be enabled in order to use kmemcheck at all... + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_[DISABLED | ENABLED | ONESHOT]_BY_DEFAULT + + This option controls the status of kmemcheck at boot-time. "Enabled" + will enable kmemcheck right from the start, "disabled" will boot the + kernel as normal (but with the kmemcheck code compiled in, so it can + be enabled at run-time after the kernel has booted), and "one-shot" is + a special mode which will turn kmemcheck off automatically after + detecting the first use of uninitialized memory. + + If you are using kmemcheck to actively debug a problem, then you + probably want to choose "enabled" here. + + The one-shot mode is mostly useful in automated test setups because it + can prevent floods of warnings and increase the chances of the machine + surviving in case something is really wrong. In other cases, the one- + shot mode could actually be counter-productive because it would turn + itself off at the very first error -- in the case of a false positive + too -- and this would come in the way of debugging the specific + problem you were interested in. + + If you would like to use your kernel as normal, but with a chance to + enable kmemcheck in case of some problem, it might be a good idea to + choose "disabled" here. When kmemcheck is disabled, most of the run- + time overhead is not incurred, and the kernel will be almost as fast + as normal. + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_QUEUE_SIZE + + Select the maximum number of error reports to store in an internal + (fixed-size) buffer. Since errors can occur virtually anywhere and in + any context, we need a temporary storage area which is guaranteed not + to generate any other page faults when accessed. The queue will be + emptied as soon as a tasklet may be scheduled. If the queue is full, + new error reports will be lost. + + The default value of 64 is probably fine. If some code produces more + than 64 errors within an irqs-off section, then the code is likely to + produce many, many more, too, and these additional reports seldom give + any more information (the first report is usually the most valuable + anyway). + + This number might have to be adjusted if you are not using serial + console or similar to capture the kernel log. If you are using the + "dmesg" command to save the log, then getting a lot of kmemcheck + warnings might overflow the kernel log itself, and the earlier reports + will get lost in that way instead. Try setting this to 10 or so on + such a setup. + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_SHADOW_COPY_SHIFT + + Select the number of shadow bytes to save along with each entry of the + error-report queue. These bytes indicate what parts of an allocation + are initialized, uninitialized, etc. and will be displayed when an + error is detected to help the debugging of a particular problem. + + The number entered here is actually the logarithm of the number of + bytes that will be saved. So if you pick for example 5 here, kmemcheck + will save 2^5 = 32 bytes. + + The default value should be fine for debugging most problems. It also + fits nicely within 80 columns. + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_PARTIAL_OK + + This option (when enabled) works around certain GCC optimizations that + produce 32-bit reads from 16-bit variables where the upper 16 bits are + thrown away afterwards. + + The default value (enabled) is recommended. This may of course hide + some real errors, but disabling it would probably produce a lot of + false positives. + + o CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_BITOPS_OK + + This option silences warnings that would be generated for bit-field + accesses where not all the bits are initialized at the same time. This + may also hide some real bugs. + + This option is probably obsolete, or it should be replaced with + the kmemcheck-/bitfield-annotations for the code in question. The + default value is therefore fine. + +Now compile the kernel as usual. + + +3. How to use +============= + +3.1. Booting +============ + +First some information about the command-line options. There is only one +option specific to kmemcheck, and this is called "kmemcheck". It can be used +to override the default mode as chosen by the CONFIG_KMEMCHECK_*_BY_DEFAULT +option. Its possible settings are: + + o kmemcheck=0 (disabled) + o kmemcheck=1 (enabled) + o kmemcheck=2 (one-shot mode) + +If SLUB debugging has been enabled in the kernel, it may take precedence over +kmemcheck in such a way that the slab caches which are under SLUB debugging +will not be tracked by kmemcheck. In order to ensure that this doesn't happen +(even though it shouldn't by default), use SLUB's boot option "slub_debug", +like this: slub_debug=- + +In fact, this option may also be used for fine-grained control over SLUB vs. +kmemcheck. For example, if the command line includes "kmemcheck=1 +slub_debug=,dentry", then SLUB debugging will be used only for the "dentry" +slab cache, and with kmemcheck tracking all the other caches. This is advanced +usage, however, and is not generally recommended. + + +3.2. Run-time enable/disable +============================ + +When the kernel has booted, it is possible to enable or disable kmemcheck at +run-time. WARNING: This feature is still experimental and may cause false +positive warnings to appear. Therefore, try not to use this. If you find that +it doesn't work properly (e.g. you see an unreasonable amount of warnings), I +will be happy to take bug reports. + +Use the file /proc/sys/kernel/kmemcheck for this purpose, e.g.: + + $ echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/kmemcheck # disables kmemcheck + +The numbers are the same as for the kmemcheck= command-line option. + + +3.3. Debugging +============== + +A typical report will look something like this: + +WARNING: kmemcheck: Caught 32-bit read from uninitialized memory (ffff88003e4a2024) +80000000000000000000000000000000000000000088ffff0000000000000000 + i i i i u u u u i i i i i i i i u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u + ^ + +Pid: 1856, comm: ntpdate Not tainted 2.6.29-rc5 #264 945P-A +RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8104ede8>] [<ffffffff8104ede8>] __dequeue_signal+0xc8/0x190 +RSP: 0018:ffff88003cdf7d98 EFLAGS: 00210002 +RAX: 0000000000000030 RBX: ffff88003d4ea968 RCX: 0000000000000009 +RDX: ffff88003e5d6018 RSI: ffff88003e5d6024 RDI: ffff88003cdf7e84 +RBP: ffff88003cdf7db8 R08: ffff88003e5d6000 R09: 0000000000000000 +R10: 0000000000000080 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 000000000000000e +R13: ffff88003cdf7e78 R14: ffff88003d530710 R15: ffff88003d5a98c8 +FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff880001982000(0063) knlGS:00000 +CS: 0010 DS: 002b ES: 002b CR0: 0000000080050033 +CR2: ffff88003f806ea0 CR3: 000000003c036000 CR4: 00000000000006a0 +DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 +DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff4ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 + [<ffffffff8104f04e>] dequeue_signal+0x8e/0x170 + [<ffffffff81050bd8>] get_signal_to_deliver+0x98/0x390 + [<ffffffff8100b87d>] do_notify_resume+0xad/0x7d0 + [<ffffffff8100c7b5>] int_signal+0x12/0x17 + [<ffffffffffffffff>] 0xffffffffffffffff + +The single most valuable information in this report is the RIP (or EIP on 32- +bit) value. This will help us pinpoint exactly which instruction that caused +the warning. + +If your kernel was compiled with CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y, then all we have to do +is give this address to the addr2line program, like this: + + $ addr2line -e vmlinux -i ffffffff8104ede8 + arch/x86/include/asm/string_64.h:12 + include/asm-generic/siginfo.h:287 + kernel/signal.c:380 + kernel/signal.c:410 + +The "-e vmlinux" tells addr2line which file to look in. IMPORTANT: This must +be the vmlinux of the kernel that produced the warning in the first place! If +not, the line number information will almost certainly be wrong. + +The "-i" tells addr2line to also print the line numbers of inlined functions. +In this case, the flag was very important, because otherwise, it would only +have printed the first line, which is just a call to memcpy(), which could be +called from a thousand places in the kernel, and is therefore not very useful. +These inlined functions would not show up in the stack trace above, simply +because the kernel doesn't load the extra debugging information. This +technique can of course be used with ordinary kernel oopses as well. + +In this case, it's the caller of memcpy() that is interesting, and it can be +found in include/asm-generic/siginfo.h, line 287: + +281 static inline void copy_siginfo(struct siginfo *to, struct siginfo *from) +282 { +283 if (from->si_code < 0) +284 memcpy(to, from, sizeof(*to)); +285 else +286 /* _sigchld is currently the largest know union member */ +287 memcpy(to, from, __ARCH_SI_PREAMBLE_SIZE + sizeof(from->_sifields._sigchld)); +288 } + +Since this was a read (kmemcheck usually warns about reads only, though it can +warn about writes to unallocated or freed memory as well), it was probably the +"from" argument which contained some uninitialized bytes. Following the chain +of calls, we move upwards to see where "from" was allocated or initialized, +kernel/signal.c, line 380: + +359 static void collect_signal(int sig, struct sigpending *list, siginfo_t *info) +360 { +... +367 list_for_each_entry(q, &list->list, list) { +368 if (q->info.si_signo == sig) { +369 if (first) +370 goto still_pending; +371 first = q; +... +377 if (first) { +378 still_pending: +379 list_del_init(&first->list); +380 copy_siginfo(info, &first->info); +381 __sigqueue_free(first); +... +392 } +393 } + +Here, it is &first->info that is being passed on to copy_siginfo(). The +variable "first" was found on a list -- passed in as the second argument to +collect_signal(). We continue our journey through the stack, to figure out +where the item on "list" was allocated or initialized. We move to line 410: + +395 static int __dequeue_signal(struct sigpending *pending, sigset_t *mask, +396 siginfo_t *info) +397 { +... +410 collect_signal(sig, pending, info); +... +414 } + +Now we need to follow the "pending" pointer, since that is being passed on to +collect_signal() as "list". At this point, we've run out of lines from the +"addr2line" output. Not to worry, we just paste the next addresses from the +kmemcheck stack dump, i.e.: + + [<ffffffff8104f04e>] dequeue_signal+0x8e/0x170 + [<ffffffff81050bd8>] get_signal_to_deliver+0x98/0x390 + [<ffffffff8100b87d>] do_notify_resume+0xad/0x7d0 + [<ffffffff8100c7b5>] int_signal+0x12/0x17 + + $ addr2line -e vmlinux -i ffffffff8104f04e ffffffff81050bd8 \ + ffffffff8100b87d ffffffff8100c7b5 + kernel/signal.c:446 + kernel/signal.c:1806 + arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:805 + arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:871 + arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S:694 + +Remember that since these addresses were found on the stack and not as the +RIP value, they actually point to the _next_ instruction (they are return +addresses). This becomes obvious when we look at the code for line 446: + +422 int dequeue_signal(struct task_struct *tsk, sigset_t *mask, siginfo_t *info) +423 { +... +431 signr = __dequeue_signal(&tsk->signal->shared_pending, +432 mask, info); +433 /* +434 * itimer signal ? +435 * +436 * itimers are process shared and we restart periodic +437 * itimers in the signal delivery path to prevent DoS +438 * attacks in the high resolution timer case. This is +439 * compliant with the old way of self restarting +440 * itimers, as the SIGALRM is a legacy signal and only +441 * queued once. Changing the restart behaviour to +442 * restart the timer in the signal dequeue path is +443 * reducing the timer noise on heavy loaded !highres +444 * systems too. +445 */ +446 if (unlikely(signr == SIGALRM)) { +... +489 } + +So instead of looking at 446, we should be looking at 431, which is the line +that executes just before 446. Here we see that what we are looking for is +&tsk->signal->shared_pending. + +Our next task is now to figure out which function that puts items on this +"shared_pending" list. A crude, but efficient tool, is git grep: + + $ git grep -n 'shared_pending' kernel/ + ... + kernel/signal.c:828: pending = group ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending; + kernel/signal.c:1339: pending = group ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending; + ... + +There were more results, but none of them were related to list operations, +and these were the only assignments. We inspect the line numbers more closely +and find that this is indeed where items are being added to the list: + +816 static int send_signal(int sig, struct siginfo *info, struct task_struct *t, +817 int group) +818 { +... +828 pending = group ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending; +... +851 q = __sigqueue_alloc(t, GFP_ATOMIC, (sig < SIGRTMIN && +852 (is_si_special(info) || +853 info->si_code >= 0))); +854 if (q) { +855 list_add_tail(&q->list, &pending->list); +... +890 } + +and: + +1309 int send_sigqueue(struct sigqueue *q, struct task_struct *t, int group) +1310 { +.... +1339 pending = group ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending; +1340 list_add_tail(&q->list, &pending->list); +.... +1347 } + +In the first case, the list element we are looking for, "q", is being returned +from the function __sigqueue_alloc(), which looks like an allocation function. +Let's take a look at it: + +187 static struct sigqueue *__sigqueue_alloc(struct task_struct *t, gfp_t flags, +188 int override_rlimit) +189 { +190 struct sigqueue *q = NULL; +191 struct user_struct *user; +192 +193 /* +194 * We won't get problems with the target's UID changing under us +195 * because changing it requires RCU be used, and if t != current, the +196 * caller must be holding the RCU readlock (by way of a spinlock) and +197 * we use RCU protection here +198 */ +199 user = get_uid(__task_cred(t)->user); +200 atomic_inc(&user->sigpending); +201 if (override_rlimit || +202 atomic_read(&user->sigpending) <= +203 t->signal->rlim[RLIMIT_SIGPENDING].rlim_cur) +204 q = kmem_cache_alloc(sigqueue_cachep, flags); +205 if (unlikely(q == NULL)) { +206 atomic_dec(&user->sigpending); +207 free_uid(user); +208 } else { +209 INIT_LIST_HEAD(&q->list); +210 q->flags = 0; +211 q->user = user; +212 } +213 +214 return q; +215 } + +We see that this function initializes q->list, q->flags, and q->user. It seems +that now is the time to look at the definition of "struct sigqueue", e.g.: + +14 struct sigqueue { +15 struct list_head list; +16 int flags; +17 siginfo_t info; +18 struct user_struct *user; +19 }; + +And, you might remember, it was a memcpy() on &first->info that caused the +warning, so this makes perfect sense. It also seems reasonable to assume that +it is the caller of __sigqueue_alloc() that has the responsibility of filling +out (initializing) this member. + +But just which fields of the struct were uninitialized? Let's look at +kmemcheck's report again: + +WARNING: kmemcheck: Caught 32-bit read from uninitialized memory (ffff88003e4a2024) +80000000000000000000000000000000000000000088ffff0000000000000000 + i i i i u u u u i i i i i i i i u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u + ^ + +These first two lines are the memory dump of the memory object itself, and the +shadow bytemap, respectively. The memory object itself is in this case +&first->info. Just beware that the start of this dump is NOT the start of the +object itself! The position of the caret (^) corresponds with the address of +the read (ffff88003e4a2024). + +The shadow bytemap dump legend is as follows: + + i - initialized + u - uninitialized + a - unallocated (memory has been allocated by the slab layer, but has not + yet been handed off to anybody) + f - freed (memory has been allocated by the slab layer, but has been freed + by the previous owner) + +In order to figure out where (relative to the start of the object) the +uninitialized memory was located, we have to look at the disassembly. For +that, we'll need the RIP address again: + +RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8104ede8>] [<ffffffff8104ede8>] __dequeue_signal+0xc8/0x190 + + $ objdump -d --no-show-raw-insn vmlinux | grep -C 8 ffffffff8104ede8: + ffffffff8104edc8: mov %r8,0x8(%r8) + ffffffff8104edcc: test %r10d,%r10d + ffffffff8104edcf: js ffffffff8104ee88 <__dequeue_signal+0x168> + ffffffff8104edd5: mov %rax,%rdx + ffffffff8104edd8: mov $0xc,%ecx + ffffffff8104eddd: mov %r13,%rdi + ffffffff8104ede0: mov $0x30,%eax + ffffffff8104ede5: mov %rdx,%rsi + ffffffff8104ede8: rep movsl %ds:(%rsi),%es:(%rdi) + ffffffff8104edea: test $0x2,%al + ffffffff8104edec: je ffffffff8104edf0 <__dequeue_signal+0xd0> + ffffffff8104edee: movsw %ds:(%rsi),%es:(%rdi) + ffffffff8104edf0: test $0x1,%al + ffffffff8104edf2: je ffffffff8104edf5 <__dequeue_signal+0xd5> + ffffffff8104edf4: movsb %ds:(%rsi),%es:(%rdi) + ffffffff8104edf5: mov %r8,%rdi + ffffffff8104edf8: callq ffffffff8104de60 <__sigqueue_free> + +As expected, it's the "rep movsl" instruction from the memcpy() that causes +the warning. We know about REP MOVSL that it uses the register RCX to count +the number of remaining iterations. By taking a look at the register dump +again (from the kmemcheck report), we can figure out how many bytes were left +to copy: + +RAX: 0000000000000030 RBX: ffff88003d4ea968 RCX: 0000000000000009 + +By looking at the disassembly, we also see that %ecx is being loaded with the +value $0xc just before (ffffffff8104edd8), so we are very lucky. Keep in mind +that this is the number of iterations, not bytes. And since this is a "long" +operation, we need to multiply by 4 to get the number of bytes. So this means +that the uninitialized value was encountered at 4 * (0xc - 0x9) = 12 bytes +from the start of the object. + +We can now try to figure out which field of the "struct siginfo" that was not +initialized. This is the beginning of the struct: + +40 typedef struct siginfo { +41 int si_signo; +42 int si_errno; +43 int si_code; +44 +45 union { +.. +92 } _sifields; +93 } siginfo_t; + +On 64-bit, the int is 4 bytes long, so it must the the union member that has +not been initialized. We can verify this using gdb: + + $ gdb vmlinux + ... + (gdb) p &((struct siginfo *) 0)->_sifields + $1 = (union {...} *) 0x10 + +Actually, it seems that the union member is located at offset 0x10 -- which +means that gcc has inserted 4 bytes of padding between the members si_code +and _sifields. We can now get a fuller picture of the memory dump: + + _----------------------------=> si_code + / _--------------------=> (padding) + | / _------------=> _sifields(._kill._pid) + | | / _----=> _sifields(._kill._uid) + | | | / +-------|-------|-------|-------| +80000000000000000000000000000000000000000088ffff0000000000000000 + i i i i u u u u i i i i i i i i u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u + +This allows us to realize another important fact: si_code contains the value +0x80. Remember that x86 is little endian, so the first 4 bytes "80000000" are +really the number 0x00000080. With a bit of research, we find that this is +actually the constant SI_KERNEL defined in include/asm-generic/siginfo.h: + +144 #define SI_KERNEL 0x80 /* sent by the kernel from somewhere */ + +This macro is used in exactly one place in the x86 kernel: In send_signal() +in kernel/signal.c: + +816 static int send_signal(int sig, struct siginfo *info, struct task_struct *t, +817 int group) +818 { +... +828 pending = group ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending; +... +851 q = __sigqueue_alloc(t, GFP_ATOMIC, (sig < SIGRTMIN && +852 (is_si_special(info) || +853 info->si_code >= 0))); +854 if (q) { +855 list_add_tail(&q->list, &pending->list); +856 switch ((unsigned long) info) { +... +865 case (unsigned long) SEND_SIG_PRIV: +866 q->info.si_signo = sig; +867 q->info.si_errno = 0; +868 q->info.si_code = SI_KERNEL; +869 q->info.si_pid = 0; +870 q->info.si_uid = 0; +871 break; +... +890 } + +Not only does this match with the .si_code member, it also matches the place +we found earlier when looking for where siginfo_t objects are enqueued on the +"shared_pending" list. + +So to sum up: It seems that it is the padding introduced by the compiler +between two struct fields that is uninitialized, and this gets reported when +we do a memcpy() on the struct. This means that we have identified a false +positive warning. + +Normally, kmemcheck will not report uninitialized accesses in memcpy() calls +when both the source and destination addresses are tracked. (Instead, we copy +the shadow bytemap as well). In this case, the destination address clearly +was not tracked. We can dig a little deeper into the stack trace from above: + + arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:805 + arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:871 + arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S:694 + +And we clearly see that the destination siginfo object is located on the +stack: + +782 static void do_signal(struct pt_regs *regs) +783 { +784 struct k_sigaction ka; +785 siginfo_t info; +... +804 signr = get_signal_to_deliver(&info, &ka, regs, NULL); +... +854 } + +And this &info is what eventually gets passed to copy_siginfo() as the +destination argument. + +Now, even though we didn't find an actual error here, the example is still a +good one, because it shows how one would go about to find out what the report +was all about. + + +3.4. Annotating false positives +=============================== + +There are a few different ways to make annotations in the source code that +will keep kmemcheck from checking and reporting certain allocations. Here +they are: + + o __GFP_NOTRACK_FALSE_POSITIVE + + This flag can be passed to kmalloc() or kmem_cache_alloc() (therefore + also to other functions that end up calling one of these) to indicate + that the allocation should not be tracked because it would lead to + a false positive report. This is a "big hammer" way of silencing + kmemcheck; after all, even if the false positive pertains to + particular field in a struct, for example, we will now lose the + ability to find (real) errors in other parts of the same struct. + + Example: + + /* No warnings will ever trigger on accessing any part of x */ + x = kmalloc(sizeof *x, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOTRACK_FALSE_POSITIVE); + + o kmemcheck_bitfield_begin(name)/kmemcheck_bitfield_end(name) and + kmemcheck_annotate_bitfield(ptr, name) + + The first two of these three macros can be used inside struct + definitions to signal, respectively, the beginning and end of a + bitfield. Additionally, this will assign the bitfield a name, which + is given as an argument to the macros. + + Having used these markers, one can later use + kmemcheck_annotate_bitfield() at the point of allocation, to indicate + which parts of the allocation is part of a bitfield. + + Example: + + struct foo { + int x; + + kmemcheck_bitfield_begin(flags); + int flag_a:1; + int flag_b:1; + kmemcheck_bitfield_end(flags); + + int y; + }; + + struct foo *x = kmalloc(sizeof *x); + + /* No warnings will trigger on accessing the bitfield of x */ + kmemcheck_annotate_bitfield(x, flags); + + Note that kmemcheck_annotate_bitfield() can be used even before the + return value of kmalloc() is checked -- in other words, passing NULL + as the first argument is legal (and will do nothing). + + +4. Reporting errors +=================== + +As we have seen, kmemcheck will produce false positive reports. Therefore, it +is not very wise to blindly post kmemcheck warnings to mailing lists and +maintainers. Instead, I encourage maintainers and developers to find errors +in their own code. If you get a warning, you can try to work around it, try +to figure out if it's a real error or not, or simply ignore it. Most +developers know their own code and will quickly and efficiently determine the +root cause of a kmemcheck report. This is therefore also the most efficient +way to work with kmemcheck. + +That said, we (the kmemcheck maintainers) will always be on the lookout for +false positives that we can annotate and silence. So whatever you find, +please drop us a note privately! Kernel configs and steps to reproduce (if +available) are of course a great help too. + +Happy hacking! + + +5. Technical description +======================== + +kmemcheck works by marking memory pages non-present. This means that whenever +somebody attempts to access the page, a page fault is generated. The page +fault handler notices that the page was in fact only hidden, and so it calls +on the kmemcheck code to make further investigations. + +When the investigations are completed, kmemcheck "shows" the page by marking +it present (as it would be under normal circumstances). This way, the +interrupted code can continue as usual. + +But after the instruction has been executed, we should hide the page again, so +that we can catch the next access too! Now kmemcheck makes use of a debugging +feature of the processor, namely single-stepping. When the processor has +finished the one instruction that generated the memory access, a debug +exception is raised. From here, we simply hide the page again and continue +execution, this time with the single-stepping feature turned off. + +kmemcheck requires some assistance from the memory allocator in order to work. +The memory allocator needs to + + 1. Tell kmemcheck about newly allocated pages and pages that are about to + be freed. This allows kmemcheck to set up and tear down the shadow memory + for the pages in question. The shadow memory stores the status of each + byte in the allocation proper, e.g. whether it is initialized or + uninitialized. + + 2. Tell kmemcheck which parts of memory should be marked uninitialized. + There are actually a few more states, such as "not yet allocated" and + "recently freed". + +If a slab cache is set up using the SLAB_NOTRACK flag, it will never return +memory that can take page faults because of kmemcheck. + +If a slab cache is NOT set up using the SLAB_NOTRACK flag, callers can still +request memory with the __GFP_NOTRACK or __GFP_NOTRACK_FALSE_POSITIVE flags. +This does not prevent the page faults from occurring, however, but marks the +object in question as being initialized so that no warnings will ever be +produced for this object. + +Currently, the SLAB and SLUB allocators are supported by kmemcheck. |