Re: [PATCH] zram: fix idle age_sec underflow in idle_store()
From: Sergey Senozhatsky
Date: Fri Aug 28 2026 - 02:03:28 EST
On (26/08/28 13:23), Sergey Senozhatsky wrote:
> On (26/08/25 17:23), Hao Jia wrote:
> > After commit 2e8ff2f51dde ("zram: use u32 for entry ac_time tracking"),
> > idle_store() computes the idle cutoff as follows:
> >
> > cutoff = ktime_sub((u32)ktime_get_boottime_seconds(), age_sec);
> >
> > Because the left operand is cast to a 32-bit unsigned integer, when
> > age_sec exceeds the current uptime, the subtraction wraps modulo 2^32
> > and the huge result is zero-extended into the s64 cutoff. mark_idle()
> > subsequently marks every entry as idle instead of matching nothing,
> > breaking the intended semantics of /sys/block/zramX/idle. For instance,
> > running echo 86400 > idle on a machine up for only two minutes causes
> > all newly written pages to be marked as idle and handed over to idle
> > writeback and recompression.
> >
> > Drop the explicit cast to perform the subtraction in signed arithmetic
> > again, restoring the previous behavior: an age_sec greater than uptime
> > yields a negative cutoff, and one equal to uptime yields 0. Since a
> > cutoff of 0 is now a valid computed value, it can no longer double as
> > the "all" sentinel. Switch to KTIME_MIN instead, which no ac_time can
> > be after.
>
> Can we instead just reject such cases? It should be an error to
> request writeback of pages that are 2y old on a system that has
> uptime of 2d.
>
> Maybe something like this:
>
> + time64_t uptime;
>
> - if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ZRAM_TRACK_ENTRY_ACTIME) &&
> - !kstrtouint(buf, 0, &age_sec))
> - cutoff = ktime_sub((u32)ktime_get_boottime_seconds(),
> - age_sec);
> - else
> + if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ZRAM_TRACK_ENTRY_ACTIME) ||
> + kstrtouint(buf, 0, &age_sec))
> return -EINVAL;
> +
> + /* No slot can be older than the system uptime */
> + uptime = ktime_get_boottime_seconds();
> + if (age_sec >= uptime)
> + return -ERANGE;
Or perhaps, instead "return len" and make it a fast path out, w/o the
need to iterate any slots, take locks, etc.
> +
> + cutoff = uptime - age_sec;
> }