Re: [PATCH v3] kvmalloc: always use vmalloc if CONFIG_DEBUG_SG

From: Matthew Wilcox
Date: Tue Apr 24 2018 - 13:17:07 EST


On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 08:29:14AM -0400, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 08:06:16PM -0400, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> > > Some bugs (such as buffer overflows) are better detected
> > > with kmalloc code, so we must test the kmalloc path too.
> >
> > Well now, this brings up another item for the collective TODO list --
> > implement redzone checks for vmalloc. Unless this is something already
> > taken care of by kasan or similar.
>
> The kmalloc overflow testing is also not ideal - it rounds the size up to
> the next slab size and detects buffer overflows only at this boundary.
>
> Some times ago, I made a "kmalloc guard" patch that places a magic number
> immediatelly after the requested size - so that it can detect overflows at
> byte boundary
> ( https://www.redhat.com/archives/dm-devel/2014-September/msg00018.html )
>
> That patch found a bug in crypto code:
> ( http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1409.1/02325.html )

Is it still worth doing this, now we have kasan?