[PATCH v2] sched: move stack_canary to the start of the randomizable region

From: Ruidong Tian

Date: Fri May 08 2026 - 23:50:37 EST


task_struct keeps growing over time. On architectures that compute the
per-task stack canary offset from asm-offsets.h and pass it to the
compiler via -mstack-protector-guard-offset=, this growth eventually
pushes stack_canary beyond what the target ISA can encode.

On RISC-V, canary loads are emitted as

ld t0, TSK_STACK_CANARY(tp)

where TSK_STACK_CANARY must fit into a 12-bit signed immediate, i.e.
[-2048, 2047]. Once stack_canary sits past byte 2047 of task_struct,
the build fails with

cc1: error: '<N>' is not a valid offset in
'-mstack-protector-guard-offset='

* On RISC-V, CONFIG_STACKPROTECTOR_PER_TASK depends on !RANDSTRUCT,
so randomized_struct_fields_start/end always expand to nothing and
stack_canary lands at a small, stable offset well within the
12-bit signed immediate range. The build error goes away.

* On architectures that enable RANDSTRUCT for hardening, stack_canary
stays inside the randomized region and is still shuffled together
with the other fields by the layout randomization, so its hardening
coverage is preserved. asm-offsets-based architectures read the
shuffled offset at build time, so the generated canary accesses
remain correct.

pahole on a typical 64-bit config shows that the area around the
wakee_* fields already contains a usable hole:

struct __call_single_node wake_entry; /* 56 16 */
/* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */
unsigned int wakee_flips; /* 72 4 */
/* XXX 4 bytes hole, try to pack */
unsigned long int wakee_flip_decay_ts; /* 80 8 */
struct task_struct * last_wakee; /* 88 8 */

Move wakee_flips to sit after last_wakee. That opens up a clean
8-byte slot at offset 72 into which stack_canary fits exactly:

struct __call_single_node wake_entry; /* 56 16 */
/* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */
unsigned long stack_canary; /* 72 8 */
unsigned long int wakee_flip_decay_ts; /* 80 8 */
struct task_struct * last_wakee; /* 88 8 */
unsigned int wakee_flips; /* 96 4 */

Suggested-by: K Prateek Nayak <kprateek.nayak@xxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Ruidong Tian <tianruidong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
include/linux/sched.h | 12 +++++++-----
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index 368c7b4d7cb5..5064c4afd19c 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -848,9 +848,15 @@ struct task_struct {

int on_cpu;
struct __call_single_node wake_entry;
- unsigned int wakee_flips;
+
+#ifdef CONFIG_STACKPROTECTOR
+ /* Canary value for the -fstack-protector GCC feature: */
+ unsigned long stack_canary;
+#endif
+
unsigned long wakee_flip_decay_ts;
struct task_struct *last_wakee;
+ unsigned int wakee_flips;

/*
* recent_used_cpu is initially set as the last CPU used by a task
@@ -1060,10 +1066,6 @@ struct task_struct {
pid_t pid;
pid_t tgid;

-#ifdef CONFIG_STACKPROTECTOR
- /* Canary value for the -fstack-protector GCC feature: */
- unsigned long stack_canary;
-#endif
/*
* Pointers to the (original) parent process, youngest child, younger sibling,
* older sibling, respectively. (p->father can be replaced with
--
2.51.2.612.gdc70283dfc