[RFC PATCH] mm/damon/core: validate ranges in damon_set_regions()

From: SeongJae Park

Date: Sat Jun 27 2026 - 13:01:19 EST


DAMON core logic assumes zero length regions don't exist. However, a
few DAMON API callers including DAMON_SYSFS, DAMON_RECLAIM and
DAMON_LRU_SORT allow users to set empty monitoring target regions. This
could result in WARN_ONCE() on CONFIG_DAMON_DEBUG_SANITY enabled kernel,
and divide-by-zero from damon_merge_two_regions().

For example, the WANR_ONCE() can be triggered like below.

# grep DAMON_DEBUG_SANITY /boot/config-$(uname -r)
# CONFIG_DAMON_DEBUG_SANITY=y
# damo start
# cd /sys/kernel/mm/damon/admin/kdamonds/0
# echo 0 > contexts/0/targets/0/regions/0/start
# echo 0 > contexts/0/targets/0/regions/0/end
# echo commit > state
# dmesg
[....]
[ 73.705780] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 73.707552] start 0 >= end 0
[ 73.708452] WARNING: mm/damon/core.c:359 at damon_new_region+0x6e/0x80, CPU#1: kdamond.0/758
[...]

Disallow empty region user inputs by updating the validation logic.

Fixes: 43b0536cb471 ("mm/damon: introduce DAMON-based Reclamation (DAMON_RECLAIM)")
Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> # 5.16.x
Signed-off-by: SeongJae Park <sj@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/damon/core.c | 5 +++++
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/mm/damon/core.c b/mm/damon/core.c
index 7e4b9affc5b06..b3100d7fa5596 100644
--- a/mm/damon/core.c
+++ b/mm/damon/core.c
@@ -358,6 +358,11 @@ int damon_set_regions(struct damon_target *t, struct damon_addr_range *ranges,
unsigned int i;
int err;

+ for (i = 0; i < nr_ranges; i++) {
+ if (ranges[i].start >= ranges[i].end)
+ return -EINVAL;
+ }
+
/* Remove regions which are not in the new ranges */
damon_for_each_region_safe(r, next, t) {
for (i = 0; i < nr_ranges; i++) {

base-commit: f5cde2d41633df3fb1965efa00bfa827ca41836c
--
2.47.3