Currently, the hung_task_detect_count sysctl provides a cumulative count
of hung tasks since boot. In long-running, high-availability
environments, this counter may lose its utility if it cannot be reset once
an incident has been resolved. Furthermore, the previous implementation
relied upon implicit ordering, which could not strictly guarantee that
diagnostic metadata published by one CPU was visible to the panic logic on
another.
This patch introduces the capability to reset the detection count by
writing "0" to the hung_task_detect_count sysctl. The proc_handler logic
has been updated to validate this input and atomically reset the counter.
The synchronisation of sysctl_hung_task_detect_count relies upon a
transactional model to ensure the integrity of the detection counter
against concurrent resets from userspace. The application of
atomic_long_read_acquire() and atomic_long_cmpxchg_release() is correct
and provides the following guarantees:
1. Prevention of Load-Store Reordering via Acquire Semantics By
utilising atomic_long_read_acquire() to snapshot the counter
before initiating the task traversal, we establish a strict
memory barrier. This prevents the compiler or hardware from
reordering the initial load to a point later in the scan. Without
this "acquire" barrier, a delayed load could potentially read a
"0" value resulting from a userspace reset that occurred
mid-scan. This would lead to the subsequent cmpxchg succeeding
erroneously, thereby overwriting the user's reset with stale
increment data.
2. Atomicity of the "Commit" Phase via Release Semantics The
atomic_long_cmpxchg_release() serves as the transaction's commit
point. The "release" barrier ensures that all diagnostic
recordings and task-state observations made during the scan are
globally visible before the counter is incremented.
3. Race Condition Resolution This pairing effectively detects any
"out-of-band" reset of the counter. If
sysctl_hung_task_detect_count is modified via the procfs
interface during the scan, the final cmpxchg will detect the
discrepancy between the current value and the "acquire" snapshot.
Consequently, the update will fail, ensuring that a reset command
from the administrator is prioritised over a scan that may have
been invalidated by that very reset.
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20260303203031.4097316-3-atomlin@atomlin.com
Signed-off-by: Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@atomlin.com>
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Joel Granados <joel.granados@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
"A slightly calmer cycle for docs this time around, though there is
still a fair amount going on, including:
- Some signs of life on the long-moribund Japanese translation
- Documentation on policies around the use of generative tools for
patch submissions, and a separate document intended for consumption
by generative tools
- The completion of the move of the documentation tools to
tools/docs. For now we're leaving a /scripts/kernel-doc symlink
behind to avoid breaking scripts
- Ongoing build-system work includes the incorporation of
documentation in Python code, better support for documenting
variables, and lots of improvements and fixes
- Automatic linking of man-page references -- cat(1), for example --
to the online pages in the HTML build
...and the usual array of typo fixes and such"
* tag 'docs-7.0' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/docs/linux: (107 commits)
doc: development-process: add notice on testing
tools: sphinx-build-wrapper: improve its help message
docs: sphinx-build-wrapper: allow -v override -q
docs: kdoc: Fix pdfdocs build for tools
docs: ja_JP: process: translate 'Obtain a current source tree'
docs: fix 're-use' -> 'reuse' in documentation
docs: ioctl-number: fix a typo in ioctl-number.rst
docs: filesystems: ensure proc pid substitutable is complete
docs: automarkup.py: Skip common English words as C identifiers
Documentation: use a source-read extension for the index link boilerplate
docs: parse_features: make documentation more consistent
docs: add parse_features module documentation
docs: jobserver: do some documentation improvements
docs: add jobserver module documentation
docs: kabi: helpers: add documentation for each "enum" value
docs: kabi: helpers: add helper for debug bits 7 and 8
docs: kabi: system_symbols: end docstring phrases with a dot
docs: python: abi_regex: do some improvements at documentation
docs: python: abi_parser: do some improvements at documentation
docs: add kabi modules documentation
...
vsprintf.c uses a mix of the `kernel.kptr_restrict` sysctl and the
`hash_pointers` boot param to control pointer hashing. But that wasn't
possible to tell without looking at the source code.
They have a different focus and purpose. To avoid wasting the time of
users trying to use one instead of the other, simply have them reference
each other in the Documentation.
Signed-off-by: Marc Herbert <marc.herbert@linux.intel.com>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Message-ID: <20260107-doc-hash-ptr-v2-1-cb4c161218d7@linux.intel.com>
Patch series "Enable hung_task and lockup cases to dump system info on
demand", v2.
When working on kernel stability issues: panic, task-hung and soft/hard
lockup are frequently met. And to debug them, user may need lots of
system information at that time, like task call stacks, lock info, memory
info, ftrace dump, etc.
panic case already uses sys_info() for this purpose, and has a
'panic_sys_info' sysctl(also support cmdline setup) interface to take
human readable string like "tasks,mem,timers,locks,ftrace,..." to control
what kinds of information is needed. Which is also helpful to debug
task-hung and lockup cases.
So this patchset introduces the similar sys_info sysctl interface for
task-hung and lockup cases.
his is mainly for debugging and the info dumping could be intrusive, like
dumping call stack for all tasks when system has huge number of tasks,
similarly for ftrace dump (we may add tracing_stop() and tracing_start()
around it)
Locally these have been used in our bug chasing for stability issues and
were helpful.
As Andrew suggested, add a configurable global 'kernel_sys_info' knob.
When error scenarios like panic/hung-task/lockup etc doesn't setup their
own sys_info knob and calls sys_info() with parameter "0", this global
knob will take effect. It could be used for other kernel cases like OOM,
which may not need one dedicated sys_info knob.
This patch (of 4):
Some sys_info names wered forgotten to change in patch iterations, while
the right names are defined in kernel/sys_info.c.
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20251113111039.22701-1-feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20251113111039.22701-2-feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com
Fixes: d747755917 ("panic: add 'panic_sys_info' sysctl to take human readable string parameter")
Signed-off-by: Feng Tang <feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Lance Yang <ioworker0@gmail.com>
Cc: "Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Pull non-MM updates from Andrew Morton:
"Significant patch series in this pull request:
- "squashfs: Remove page->mapping references" (Matthew Wilcox) gets
us closer to being able to remove page->mapping
- "relayfs: misc changes" (Jason Xing) does some maintenance and
minor feature addition work in relayfs
- "kdump: crashkernel reservation from CMA" (Jiri Bohac) switches
us from static preallocation of the kdump crashkernel's working
memory over to dynamic allocation. So the difficulty of a-priori
estimation of the second kernel's needs is removed and the first
kernel obtains extra memory
- "generalize panic_print's dump function to be used by other
kernel parts" (Feng Tang) implements some consolidation and
rationalization of the various ways in which a failing kernel
splats information at the operator
* tag 'mm-nonmm-stable-2025-08-03-12-47' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm: (80 commits)
tools/getdelays: add backward compatibility for taskstats version
kho: add test for kexec handover
delaytop: enhance error logging and add PSI feature description
samples: Kconfig: fix spelling mistake "instancess" -> "instances"
fat: fix too many log in fat_chain_add()
scripts/spelling.txt: add notifer||notifier to spelling.txt
xen/xenbus: fix typo "notifer"
net: mvneta: fix typo "notifer"
drm/xe: fix typo "notifer"
cxl: mce: fix typo "notifer"
KVM: x86: fix typo "notifer"
MAINTAINERS: add maintainers for delaytop
ucount: use atomic_long_try_cmpxchg() in atomic_long_inc_below()
ucount: fix atomic_long_inc_below() argument type
kexec: enable CMA based contiguous allocation
stackdepot: make max number of pools boot-time configurable
lib/xxhash: remove unused functions
init/Kconfig: restore CONFIG_BROKEN help text
lib/raid6: update recov_rvv.c zero page usage
docs: update docs after introducing delaytop
...
Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
"It has been a relatively busy cycle for docs, especially the build
system:
- The Perl kernel-doc script was added to 2.3.52pre1 just after the
turn of the millennium. Over the following 25 years, it accumulated
a vast amount of cruft, all in a language few people want to deal
with anymore. Mauro's Python replacement in 6.16 faithfully
reproduced all of the cruft in the hope of avoiding regressions.
Now that we have a more reasonable code base, though, we can work
on cleaning it up; many of the changes this time around are toward
that end.
- A reorganization of the ext4 docs into the usual TOC format.
- Various Chinese translations and updates.
- A new script from Mauro to help with docs-build testing.
- A new document for linked lists
- A sweep through MAINTAINERS fixing broken GitHub git:// repository
links.
...and lots of fixes and updates"
* tag 'docs-6.17' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (147 commits)
scripts: add origin commit identification based on specific patterns
sphinx: kernel_abi: fix performance regression with O=<dir>
Documentation: core-api: entry: Replace deprecated KVM entry/exit functions
docs: fault-injection: drop reference to md-faulty
docs: document linked lists
scripts: kdoc: make it backward-compatible with Python 3.7
docs: kernel-doc: emit warnings for ancient versions of Python
Documentation/rtla: Describe exit status
Documentation/rtla: Add include common_appendix.rst
docs: kernel: Clarify printk_ratelimit_burst reset behavior
Documentation: ioctl-number: Don't repeat macro names
Documentation: ioctl-number: Shorten macros table
Documentation: ioctl-number: Correct full path to papr-physical-attestation.h
Documentation: ioctl-number: Extend "Include File" column width
Documentation: ioctl-number: Fix linuxppc-dev mailto link
overlayfs.rst: fix typos
docs: kdoc: emit a warning for ancient versions of Python
docs: kdoc: clean up check_sections()
docs: kdoc: directly access the always-there KdocItem fields
docs: kdoc: straighten up dump_declaration()
...
Pull sysctl updates from Joel Granados:
- Move sysctls out of the kern_table array
This is the final move of ctl_tables into their respective
subsystems. Only 5 (out of the original 50) will remain in
kernel/sysctl.c file; these handle either sysctl or common arch
variables.
By decentralizing sysctl registrations, subsystem maintainers regain
control over their sysctl interfaces, improving maintainability and
reducing the likelihood of merge conflicts.
- docs: Remove false positives from check-sysctl-docs
Stopped falsely identifying sysctls as undocumented or unimplemented
in the check-sysctl-docs script. This script can now be used to
automatically identify if documentation is missing.
* tag 'sysctl-6.17-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/sysctl/sysctl: (23 commits)
docs: Downgrade arm64 & riscv from titles to comment
docs: Replace spaces with tabs in check-sysctl-docs
docs: Remove colon from ctltable title in vm.rst
docs: Add awk section for ucount sysctl entries
docs: Use skiplist when checking sysctl admin-guide
docs: nixify check-sysctl-docs
sysctl: rename kern_table -> sysctl_subsys_table
kernel/sys.c: Move overflow{uid,gid} sysctl into kernel/sys.c
uevent: mv uevent_helper into kobject_uevent.c
sysctl: Removed unused variable
sysctl: Nixify sysctl.sh
sysctl: Remove superfluous includes from kernel/sysctl.c
sysctl: Remove (very) old file changelog
sysctl: Move sysctl_panic_on_stackoverflow to kernel/panic.c
sysctl: move cad_pid into kernel/pid.c
sysctl: Move tainted ctl_table into kernel/panic.c
Input: sysrq: mv sysrq into drivers/tty/sysrq.c
fork: mv threads-max into kernel/fork.c
parisc/power: Move soft-power into power.c
mm: move randomize_va_space into memory.c
...
Remove the title string ("====") from under arm64 & riscv and move them
to a commment under the perf_user_access sysctl. They are explanations,
*not* sysctls themselves
This effectively removes these two strings from appearing as not
implemented when the check-sysctl-docs script is run
Signed-off-by: Joel Granados <joel.granados@kernel.org>
In preparation for adding Clang sanitizer coverage stack depth tracking
that can support stack depth callbacks:
- Add the new top-level CONFIG_KSTACK_ERASE option which will be
implemented either with the stackleak GCC plugin, or with the Clang
stack depth callback support.
- Rename CONFIG_GCC_PLUGIN_STACKLEAK as needed to CONFIG_KSTACK_ERASE,
but keep it for anything specific to the GCC plugin itself.
- Rename all exposed "STACKLEAK" names and files to "KSTACK_ERASE" (named
for what it does rather than what it protects against), but leave as
many of the internals alone as possible to avoid even more churn.
While here, also split "prev_lowest_stack" into CONFIG_KSTACK_ERASE_METRICS,
since that's the only place it is referenced from.
Suggested-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250717232519.2984886-1-kees@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Patch series "generalize panic_print's dump function to be used by other
kernel parts", v3.
When working on kernel stability issues, panic, task-hung and
software/hardware lockup are frequently met. And to debug them, user may
need lots of system information at that time, like task call stacks, lock
info, memory info etc.
panic case already has panic_print_sys_info() for this purpose, and has a
'panic_print' bitmask to control what kinds of information is needed,
which is also helpful to debug other task-hung and lockup cases.
So this patchset extracts the function out to a new file 'lib/sys_info.c',
and makes it available for other cases which also need to dump system info
for debugging.
Also as suggested by Petr Mladek, add 'panic_sys_info=' interface to take
human readable string like "tasks,mem,locks,timers,ftrace,....", and
eventually obsolete the current 'panic_print' bitmap interface.
In RFC and V1 version, hung_task and SW/HW watchdog modules are enabled
with the new sys_info dump interface. In v2, they are kept out for better
review of current change, and will be posted later.
Locally these have been used in our bug chasing for stability issues and
was proven helpful.
Many thanks to Petr Mladek for great suggestions on both the code and
architectures!
This patch (of 5):
Currently the panic_print_sys_info() was called twice with different
parameters to handle console replay case, which is kind of confusing.
Add panic_console_replay() explicitly and rename
'PANIC_PRINT_ALL_PRINTK_MSG' to 'PANIC_CONSOLE_REPLAY', to make the code
straightforward. The related kernel document is also updated.
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20250703021004.42328-1-feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20250703021004.42328-2-feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com
Signed-off-by: Feng Tang <feng.tang@linux.alibaba.com>
Suggested-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: John Ogness <john.ogness@linutronix.de>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Cc: "Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
In commit b5325b2a27 ("coredump: hand a pidfd to the usermode coredump
helper") a new core_pattern specifier, %F, was added to provide a pidfs
to the usermode helper process referring to the crashed process.
Update the documentation to include the new core_pattern specifier.
Signed-off-by: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250612060204.1159734-1-carnil@debian.org
Allow users to disable kernel warnings for unaligned memory
accesses from kernel via the /proc/sys/kernel/ignore-unaligned-usertrap
procfs entry.
That way users can disable those warnings in case they happen too
often.
Signed-off-by: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>
Pull tracing updates from Steven Rostedt:
"Main user visible change:
- User events can now have "multi formats"
The current user events have a single format. If another event is
created with a different format, it will fail to be created. That
is, once an event name is used, it cannot be used again with a
different format. This can cause issues if a library is using an
event and updates its format. An application using the older format
will prevent an application using the new library from registering
its event.
A task could also DOS another application if it knows the event
names, and it creates events with different formats.
The multi-format event is in a different name space from the single
format. Both the event name and its format are the unique
identifier. This will allow two different applications to use the
same user event name but with different payloads.
- Added support to have ftrace_dump_on_oops dump out instances and
not just the main top level tracing buffer.
Other changes:
- Add eventfs_root_inode
Only the root inode has a dentry that is static (never goes away)
and stores it upon creation. There's no reason that the thousands
of other eventfs inodes should have a pointer that never gets set
in its descriptor. Create a eventfs_root_inode desciptor that has a
eventfs_inode descriptor and a dentry pointer, and only the root
inode will use this.
- Added WARN_ON()s in eventfs
There's some conditionals remaining in eventfs that should never be
hit, but instead of removing them, add WARN_ON() around them to
make sure that they are never hit.
- Have saved_cmdlines allocation also include the map_cmdline_to_pid
array
The saved_cmdlines structure allocates a large amount of data to
hold its mappings. Within it, it has three arrays. Two are already
apart of it: map_pid_to_cmdline[] and saved_cmdlines[]. More memory
can be saved by also including the map_cmdline_to_pid[] array as
well.
- Restructure __string() and __assign_str() macros used in
TRACE_EVENT()
Dynamic strings in TRACE_EVENT() are declared with:
__string(name, source)
And assigned with:
__assign_str(name, source)
In the tracepoint callback of the event, the __string() is used to
get the size needed to allocate on the ring buffer and
__assign_str() is used to copy the string into the ring buffer.
There's a helper structure that is created in the TRACE_EVENT()
macro logic that will hold the string length and its position in
the ring buffer which is created by __string().
There are several trace events that have a function to create the
string to save. This function is executed twice. Once for
__string() and again for __assign_str(). There's no reason for
this. The helper structure could also save the string it used in
__string() and simply copy that into __assign_str() (it also
already has its length).
By using the structure to store the source string for the
assignment, it means that the second argument to __assign_str() is
no longer needed.
It will be removed in the next merge window, but for now add a
warning if the source string given to __string() is different than
the source string given to __assign_str(), as the source to
__assign_str() isn't even used and will be going away.
- Added checks to make sure that the source of __string() is also the
source of __assign_str() so that it can be safely removed in the
next merge window.
Included fixes that the above check found.
- Other minor clean ups and fixes"
* tag 'trace-v6.9-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: (34 commits)
tracing: Add __string_src() helper to help compilers not to get confused
tracing: Use strcmp() in __assign_str() WARN_ON() check
tracepoints: Use WARN() and not WARN_ON() for warnings
tracing: Use div64_u64() instead of do_div()
tracing: Support to dump instance traces by ftrace_dump_on_oops
tracing: Remove second parameter to __assign_rel_str()
tracing: Add warning if string in __assign_str() does not match __string()
tracing: Add __string_len() example
tracing: Remove __assign_str_len()
ftrace: Fix most kernel-doc warnings
tracing: Decrement the snapshot if the snapshot trigger fails to register
tracing: Fix snapshot counter going between two tracers that use it
tracing: Use EVENT_NULL_STR macro instead of open coding "(null)"
tracing: Use ? : shortcut in trace macros
tracing: Do not calculate strlen() twice for __string() fields
tracing: Rework __assign_str() and __string() to not duplicate getting the string
cxl/trace: Properly initialize cxl_poison region name
net: hns3: tracing: fix hclgevf trace event strings
drm/i915: Add missing ; to __assign_str() macros in tracepoint code
NFSD: Fix nfsd_clid_class use of __string_len() macro
...
Currently ftrace only dumps the global trace buffer on an OOPs. For
debugging a production usecase, instance trace will be helpful to
check specific problems since global trace buffer may be used for
other purposes.
This patch extend the ftrace_dump_on_oops parameter to dump a specific
or multiple trace instances:
- ftrace_dump_on_oops=0: as before -- don't dump
- ftrace_dump_on_oops[=1]: as before -- dump the global trace buffer
on all CPUs
- ftrace_dump_on_oops=2 or =orig_cpu: as before -- dump the global
trace buffer on CPU that triggered the oops
- ftrace_dump_on_oops=<instance_name>: new behavior -- dump the
tracing instance matching <instance_name>
- ftrace_dump_on_oops[=2/orig_cpu],<instance1_name>[=2/orig_cpu],
<instrance2_name>[=2/orig_cpu]: new behavior -- dump the global trace
buffer and multiple instance buffer on all CPUs, or only dump on CPU
that triggered the oops if =2 or =orig_cpu is given
Also, the sysctl node can handle the input accordingly.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-trace-kernel/20240223083126.1817731-1-quic_hyiwei@quicinc.com
Cc: Ross Zwisler <zwisler@google.com>
Cc: <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Cc: <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: <j.granados@samsung.com>
Cc: <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Huang Yiwei <quic_hyiwei@quicinc.com>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Aaron TomlinandAndrew Morton
Linus Torvalds
Marc HerbertandJonathan Corbet
Askar SafinandChristian Brauner
Feng TangandAndrew Morton
Li RongQingandAndrew Morton
Joel Granados
Kees Cook
Breno LeitaoandJonathan Corbet
Salvatore BonaccorsoandJonathan Corbet
Phil AuldandJonathan Corbet
Lance YangandAndrew Morton
Helge Deller
Huang YiweiandSteven Rostedt (Google)