Re: [PATCH] proc: Disable /proc/$pid/wchan

[Kees Cook]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 11:05:35AM -0700, Stephen Brennan wrote:
> On 9/23/21 4:31 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
> > The /proc/$pid/wchan file has been broken by default on x86_64 for 4
> > years now[1]. As this remains a potential leak of either kernel
> > addresses (when symbolization fails) or limited observation of kernel
> > function progress, just remove the contents for good.
> > 
> > Unconditionally set the contents to "0" and also mark the wchan
> > field in /proc/$pid/stat with 0.
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> It looks like there's already been pushback on this idea, but I wanted
> to add another voice from a frequent user of /proc/$pid/wchan (via PS).
> Much of my job involves diagnosing kernel issues and performance issues
> on stable kernels, frequently on production systems where I can't do
> anything too invasive. wchan is incredibly useful for these situations,
> so much so that we store regular snapshots of ps output, and we expand
> the size of the WCHAN column to fit more data (e.g. ps -e -o
> pid,wchan=WCHAN-WIDE-COLUMN). Disabling wchan would remove a critical
> tool for me and my team.

Thanks for speaking up! Yes, we've moved to fixing wchan correctly as
it's clear it's still very much in use. :) Current thread is here:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210929220218.691419-1-keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx/

-- 
Kees Cook