Re: [RFC] mm: prevent set a value less than 0 to min_free_kbytes

From: Michal Hocko
Date: Wed Jan 08 2014 - 04:40:50 EST


On Wed 08-01-14 16:42:42, Han Pingtian wrote:
> If echo -1 > /proc/vm/sys/min_free_kbytes, the system will hang.
> Changing proc_dointvec() to proc_dointvec_minmax() in the
> min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler() can prevent this to happen.

You can still do echo $BIG_VALUE > /proc/vm/sys/min_free_kbytes and make
your machine unusable but I agree that proc_dointvec_minmax is more
suitable here as we already have:
.proc_handler = min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler,
.extra1 = &zero,

It used to work properly but then 6fce56ec91b5 (sysctl: Remove
references to ctl_name and strategy from the generic sysctl table) has
removed sysctl_intvec strategy and so extra1 is ignored.

> Signed-off-by: Han Pingtian <hanpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

That being said I do not think this will fix any real world problem but
just for sake of correctness

After changelog is updated feel free to add my
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxx>

> ---
> mm/page_alloc.c | 7 ++++++-
> 1 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> index 77937e0..a9dcfd8 100644
> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> @@ -5692,7 +5692,12 @@ module_init(init_per_zone_wmark_min)
> int min_free_kbytes_sysctl_handler(ctl_table *table, int write,
> void __user *buffer, size_t *length, loff_t *ppos)
> {
> - proc_dointvec(table, write, buffer, length, ppos);
> + int rc;
> +
> + rc = proc_dointvec_minmax(table, write, buffer, length, ppos);
> + if (rc)
> + return rc;
> +
> if (write) {
> user_min_free_kbytes = min_free_kbytes;
> setup_per_zone_wmarks();
> --
> 1.7.7.6
>

--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/