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| author | Marco Elver <elver@google.com> | 2026-05-11 22:00:48 +0200 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@kernel.org> | 2026-05-14 10:44:09 +0200 |
| commit | feb662d9168b63e1d4c02671ec96005410c6f3ce (patch) | |
| tree | dd620baa4b9b3d727f04c840cdea8c79ec5cdea2 /init | |
| parent | 5d6919055dec134de3c40167a490f33c74c12581 (diff) | |
| download | linux-next-history-feb662d9168b63e1d4c02671ec96005410c6f3ce.tar.gz | |
slab: support for compiler-assisted type-based slab cache partitioning
Rework the general infrastructure around RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES into more
flexible KMALLOC_PARTITION_CACHES, with the former being a partitioning
mode of the latter.
Introduce a new mode, KMALLOC_PARTITION_TYPED, which leverages a feature
available in Clang 22 and later, called "allocation tokens" via
__builtin_infer_alloc_token() [1]. Unlike KMALLOC_PARTITION_RANDOM
(formerly RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES), this mode deterministically assigns a
slab cache to an allocation of type T, regardless of allocation site.
The builtin __builtin_infer_alloc_token(<malloc-args>, ...) instructs
the compiler to infer an allocation type from arguments commonly passed
to memory-allocating functions and returns a type-derived token ID. The
implementation passes kmalloc-args to the builtin: the compiler performs
best-effort type inference, and then recognizes common patterns such as
`kmalloc(sizeof(T), ...)`, `kmalloc(sizeof(T) * n, ...)`, but also
`(T *)kmalloc(...)`. Where the compiler fails to infer a type the
fallback token (default: 0) is chosen.
Note: kmalloc_obj(..) APIs fix the pattern how size and result type are
expressed, and therefore ensures there's not much drift in which
patterns the compiler needs to recognize. Specifically, kmalloc_obj()
and friends expand to `(TYPE *)KMALLOC(__obj_size, GFP)`, which the
compiler recognizes via the cast to TYPE*.
Clang's default token ID calculation is described as [1]:
typehashpointersplit: This mode assigns a token ID based on the hash
of the allocated type's name, where the top half ID-space is reserved
for types that contain pointers and the bottom half for types that do
not contain pointers.
Separating pointer-containing objects from pointerless objects and data
allocations can help mitigate certain classes of memory corruption
exploits [2]: attackers who gains a buffer overflow on a primitive
buffer cannot use it to directly corrupt pointers or other critical
metadata in an object residing in a different, isolated heap region.
It is important to note that heap isolation strategies offer a
best-effort approach, and do not provide a 100% security guarantee,
albeit achievable at relatively low performance cost. Note that this
also does not prevent cross-cache attacks: while waiting for future
features like SLAB_VIRTUAL [3] to provide physical page isolation, this
feature should be deployed alongside SHUFFLE_PAGE_ALLOCATOR and
init_on_free=1 to mitigate cross-cache attacks and page-reuse attacks as
much as possible today.
With all that, my kernel (x86 defconfig) shows me a histogram of slab
cache object distribution per /proc/slabinfo (after boot):
<slab cache> <objs> <hist>
kmalloc-part-15 1465 ++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-14 2988 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-13 1656 ++++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-12 1045 ++++++++++
kmalloc-part-11 1697 ++++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-10 1489 ++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-09 965 +++++++++
kmalloc-part-08 710 +++++++
kmalloc-part-07 100 +
kmalloc-part-06 217 ++
kmalloc-part-05 105 +
kmalloc-part-04 4047 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
kmalloc-part-03 183 +
kmalloc-part-02 283 ++
kmalloc-part-01 316 +++
kmalloc 1422 ++++++++++++++
The above /proc/slabinfo snapshot shows me there are 6673 allocated
objects (slabs 00 - 07) that the compiler claims contain no pointers or
it was unable to infer the type of, and 12015 objects that contain
pointers (slabs 08 - 15). On a whole, this looks relatively sane.
Additionally, when I compile my kernel with -Rpass=alloc-token, which
provides diagnostics where (after dead-code elimination) type inference
failed, I see 186 allocation sites where the compiler failed to identify
a type (down from 966 when I sent the RFC [4]). Some initial review
confirms these are mostly variable sized buffers, but also include
structs with trailing flexible length arrays.
Link: https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AllocToken.html [1]
Link: https://blog.dfsec.com/ios/2025/05/30/blasting-past-ios-18/ [2]
Link: https://lwn.net/Articles/944647/ [3]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250825154505.1558444-1-elver@google.com/ [4]
Link: https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-a-framework-for-allocator-partitioning-hints/87434
Acked-by: GONG Ruiqi <gongruiqi1@huawei.com>
Co-developed-by: Harry Yoo (Oracle) <harry@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo (Oracle) <harry@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Harry Yoo (Oracle) <harry@kernel.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260511200136.3201646-1-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@kernel.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'init')
| -rw-r--r-- | init/Kconfig | 3 |
1 files changed, 3 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/init/Kconfig b/init/Kconfig index 2937c4d308aec..dba97bc8e2ce8 100644 --- a/init/Kconfig +++ b/init/Kconfig @@ -170,6 +170,9 @@ config CC_HAS_BROKEN_COUNTED_BY_REF # https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/182575 default y if CC_IS_CLANG && CLANG_VERSION < 220100 +config CC_HAS_ALLOC_TOKEN + def_bool $(cc-option,-falloc-token-max=123) + config CC_HAS_MULTIDIMENSIONAL_NONSTRING def_bool $(success,echo 'char tag[][4] __attribute__((__nonstring__)) = { };' | $(CC) $(CLANG_FLAGS) -x c - -c -o /dev/null -Werror) |
