Re: [PATCH 1/1] profile: account for partial /proc/profile reads

From: Bradley Morgan

Date: Sat Nov 14 2026 - 07:42:27 EST


On 14 November 2026 06:30:37 GMT, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>From: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: profile: account for partial /proc/profile reads
>Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:28:00 -0700
>
>read_profile() returns -EFAULT without advancing the file position
>when a user copy faults, even if earlier header bytes or a prefix of
>the counters were successfully copied. A retry can therefore copy
>the same bytes again despite the previous read having delivered data.
>
>Return the number of successfully copied bytes and advance *ppos by
>that amount. Return -EFAULT only if the fault occurs before any bytes
>are copied. Preserve the four-byte sampling-step header, raw counter
>representation, and normal successful-read behavior.
>
>Avi Weiss's "profiling: fix sampling step on 64-bit big-endian
>systems" is unchanged. This patch changes only short-read and fault
>reporting, not the output format.

Oh why not a series, please..

>
>Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>---
>Tested the combined three-patch series on x86-64 and i686 QEMU/KVM
>guests with CONFIG_PROFILING=y and profile=12.
>profile-read-test.c: PASS (0 failures) on both architectures.
>Covered short and unaligned reads, header boundaries, EOF, partial
>user-copy faults, return values, file positions and retry behavior.
>The 64-bit big-endian sampling-step fix was not runtime tested.
>No separate per-patch or unpatched-versus-patched run was reported.
>
> kernel/profile.c | 17 ++++++++++++-----
> 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>
>--- a/kernel/profile.c~profile-account-for-partial-proc-profile-reads
>+++ a/kernel/profile.c
>@@ -157,6 +157,7 @@ read_profile(struct file *file, char __u
> ssize_t read;
> char *pnt;
> unsigned int sample_step = (unsigned int)(1UL << prof_shift);
>+ size_t not_copied;
>
> if (p >= (prof_len+1)*sizeof(unsigned int))
> return 0;
>@@ -166,15 +167,21 @@ read_profile(struct file *file, char __u
>
> while (p < sizeof(unsigned int) && count > 0) {
> if (put_user(*((char *)(&sample_step)+p), buf))
>- return -EFAULT;
>+ goto out;
> buf++; p++; count--; read++;
> }
>- pnt = (char *)prof_buffer + p - sizeof(atomic_t);
>- if (copy_to_user(buf, (void *)pnt, count))
>- return -EFAULT;
>- read += count;
>+ if (count) {
>+ pnt = (char *)prof_buffer + p - sizeof(atomic_t);
>+ not_copied = copy_to_user(buf, pnt, count);
>+ read += count - not_copied;
>+ if (not_copied)
>+ goto out;
>+ }
> *ppos += read;
> return read;
>+out:
>+ *ppos += read;
>+ return read ? read : -EFAULT;
> }
>
> /* default is to not implement this call */
>_

--- Thanks!