linux/mm
David Hildenbrand bbcd53c960 drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good
Patch series "drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good".

Exploring /dev/kmem and /dev/mem in the context of memory hot(un)plug and
memory ballooning, I started questioning the existence of /dev/kmem.

Comparing it with the /proc/kcore implementation, it does not seem to be
able to deal with things like

a) Pages unmapped from the direct mapping (e.g., to be used by secretmem)
  -> kern_addr_valid(). virt_addr_valid() is not sufficient.

b) Special cases like gart aperture memory that is not to be touched
  -> mem_pfn_is_ram()

Unless I am missing something, it's at least broken in some cases and might
fault/crash the machine.

Looks like its existence has been questioned before in 2005 and 2010 [1],
after ~11 additional years, it might make sense to revive the discussion.

CONFIG_DEVKMEM is only enabled in a single defconfig (on purpose or by
mistake?).  All distributions disable it: in Ubuntu it has been disabled
for more than 10 years, in Debian since 2.6.31, in Fedora at least
starting with FC3, in RHEL starting with RHEL4, in SUSE starting from
15sp2, and OpenSUSE has it disabled as well.

1) /dev/kmem was popular for rootkits [2] before it got disabled
   basically everywhere. Ubuntu documents [3] "There is no modern user of
   /dev/kmem any more beyond attackers using it to load kernel rootkits.".
   RHEL documents in a BZ [5] "it served no practical purpose other than to
   serve as a potential security problem or to enable binary module drivers
   to access structures/functions they shouldn't be touching"

2) /proc/kcore is a decent interface to have a controlled way to read
   kernel memory for debugging puposes. (will need some extensions to
   deal with memory offlining/unplug, memory ballooning, and poisoned
   pages, though)

3) It might be useful for corner case debugging [1]. KDB/KGDB might be a
   better fit, especially, to write random memory; harder to shoot
   yourself into the foot.

4) "Kernel Memory Editor" [4] hasn't seen any updates since 2000 and seems
   to be incompatible with 64bit [1]. For educational purposes,
   /proc/kcore might be used to monitor value updates -- or older
   kernels can be used.

5) It's broken on arm64, and therefore, completely disabled there.

Looks like it's essentially unused and has been replaced by better
suited interfaces for individual tasks (/proc/kcore, KDB/KGDB). Let's
just remove it.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/147901/
[2] https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10505
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features#A.2Fdev.2Fkmem_disabled
[4] https://sourceforge.net/projects/kme/
[5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=154796

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210324102351.6932-1-david@redhat.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210324102351.6932-2-david@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Acked-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: "Alexander A. Klimov" <grandmaster@al2klimov.de>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com>
Cc: Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>
Cc: Andrey Zhizhikin <andrey.zhizhikin@leica-geosystems.com>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
Cc: Brian Cain <bcain@codeaurora.org>
Cc: Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@de.ibm.com>
Cc: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@csgroup.eu>
Cc: Chris Zankel <chris@zankel.net>
Cc: Corentin Labbe <clabbe@baylibre.com>
Cc: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
Cc: Gerald Schaefer <gerald.schaefer@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Greentime Hu <green.hu@gmail.com>
Cc: Gregory Clement <gregory.clement@bootlin.com>
Cc: Heiko Carstens <hca@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>
Cc: Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com>
Cc: huang ying <huang.ying.caritas@gmail.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Ivan Kokshaysky <ink@jurassic.park.msu.ru>
Cc: "James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>
Cc: James Troup <james.troup@canonical.com>
Cc: Jiaxun Yang <jiaxun.yang@flygoat.com>
Cc: Jonas Bonn <jonas@southpole.se>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Kairui Song <kasong@redhat.com>
Cc: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@kernel.org>
Cc: Kuninori Morimoto <kuninori.morimoto.gx@renesas.com>
Cc: Liviu Dudau <liviu.dudau@arm.com>
Cc: Lorenzo Pieralisi <lorenzo.pieralisi@arm.com>
Cc: Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@gmail.com>
Cc: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com>
Cc: Max Filippov <jcmvbkbc@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
Cc: Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>
Cc: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@redhat.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Niklas Schnelle <schnelle@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Oleksiy Avramchenko <oleksiy.avramchenko@sonymobile.com>
Cc: openrisc@lists.librecores.org
Cc: Palmer Dabbelt <palmerdabbelt@google.com>
Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
Cc: "Pavel Machek (CIP)" <pavel@denx.de>
Cc: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
Cc: "Peter Zijlstra (Intel)" <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Pierre Morel <pmorel@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Richard Henderson <rth@twiddle.net>
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
Cc: Robert Richter <rric@kernel.org>
Cc: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
Cc: Russell King <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
Cc: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>
Cc: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>
Cc: Sebastian Hesselbarth <sebastian.hesselbarth@gmail.com>
Cc: sparclinux@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Stafford Horne <shorne@gmail.com>
Cc: Stefan Kristiansson <stefan.kristiansson@saunalahti.fi>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Sudeep Holla <sudeep.holla@arm.com>
Cc: Theodore Dubois <tblodt@icloud.com>
Cc: Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vasily Gorbik <gor@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
Cc: William Cohen <wcohen@redhat.com>
Cc: Xiaoming Ni <nixiaoming@huawei.com>
Cc: Yoshinori Sato <ysato@users.sourceforge.jp>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2021-05-07 00:26:34 -07:00
..
kasan kasan: record task_work_add() call stack 2021-04-30 11:20:42 -07:00
kfence kfence: use power-efficient work queue to run delayed work 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
backing-dev.c mm/backing-dev.c: use might_alloc() 2021-02-26 09:41:01 -08:00
balloon_compaction.c
cleancache.c
cma_debug.c mm/cma: change cma mutex to irq safe spinlock 2021-05-05 11:27:21 -07:00
cma_sysfs.c mm: cma: support sysfs 2021-05-05 11:27:24 -07:00
cma.c mm: use proper type for cma_[alloc|release] 2021-05-05 11:27:24 -07:00
cma.h mm: cma: support sysfs 2021-05-05 11:27:24 -07:00
compaction.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
debug_page_ref.c
debug_vm_pgtable.c mm: HUGE_VMAP arch support cleanup 2021-04-30 11:20:40 -07:00
debug.c mm/debug: improve memcg debugging 2021-02-24 13:38:27 -08:00
dmapool.c mm/dmapool: switch from strlcpy to strscpy 2021-04-30 11:20:39 -07:00
early_ioremap.c mm/early_ioremap.c: use __func__ instead of function name 2021-02-26 09:41:02 -08:00
fadvise.c
failslab.c
filemap.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
frontswap.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
gup_test.c selftests/vm: gup_test: test faulting in kernel, and verify pinnable pages 2021-05-05 11:27:26 -07:00
gup_test.h selftests/vm: gup_test: fix test flag 2021-05-05 11:27:26 -07:00
gup.c mm/gup: longterm pin migration cleanup 2021-05-05 11:27:26 -07:00
highmem.c mm/highmem.c: fix coding style issue 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
hmm.c
huge_memory.c mm: vmscan: consolidate shrinker_maps handling code 2021-05-05 11:27:23 -07:00
hugetlb_cgroup.c hugetlb: make free_huge_page irq safe 2021-05-05 11:27:22 -07:00
hugetlb.c mm: honor PF_MEMALLOC_PIN for all movable pages 2021-05-05 11:27:26 -07:00
hwpoison-inject.c
init-mm.c mm/gup: prevent gup_fast from racing with COW during fork 2020-12-15 12:13:39 -08:00
internal.h mm,compaction: let isolate_migratepages_{range,block} return error codes 2021-05-05 11:27:22 -07:00
interval_tree.c mm/interval_tree: add comments to improve code readability 2021-04-30 11:20:38 -07:00
io-mapping.c mm: add a io_mapping_map_user helper 2021-04-30 11:20:39 -07:00
ioremap.c mm: move vmap_range from mm/ioremap.c to mm/vmalloc.c 2021-04-30 11:20:40 -07:00
Kconfig mm,memory_hotplug: allocate memmap from the added memory range 2021-05-05 11:27:26 -07:00
Kconfig.debug mm, page_poison: remove CONFIG_PAGE_POISONING_ZERO 2020-12-15 12:13:46 -08:00
khugepaged.c mm/vmscan: replace implicit RECLAIM_ZONE checks with explicit checks 2021-05-05 11:27:23 -07:00
kmemleak.c mm/kmemleak.c: fix a typo 2021-04-30 11:20:36 -07:00
ksm.c drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good 2021-05-07 00:26:34 -07:00
list_lru.c mm: vmscan: consolidate shrinker_maps handling code 2021-05-05 11:27:23 -07:00
maccess.c
madvise.c mm/madvise: replace ptrace attach requirement for process_madvise 2021-03-13 11:27:30 -08:00
Makefile mm,memory_hotplug: add kernel boot option to enable memmap_on_memory 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
mapping_dirty_helpers.c mm/mapping_dirty_helpers: guard hugepage pud's usage 2021-04-16 16:10:37 -07:00
memblock.c memblock: remove return value of memblock_free_all() 2021-02-22 13:01:23 -08:00
memcontrol.c mm: memcontrol: reparent nr_deferred when memcg offline 2021-05-05 11:27:23 -07:00
memfd.c
memory_hotplug.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
memory-failure.c mm/memory-failure: unnecessary amount of unmapping 2021-04-30 11:20:44 -07:00
memory.c delayacct: clear right task's flag after blkio completes 2021-05-07 00:26:32 -07:00
mempolicy.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
mempool.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
memremap.c mm/memremap.c: fix improper SPDX comment style 2021-04-30 11:20:37 -07:00
memtest.c
migrate.c mm: cma: add trace events for CMA alloc perf testing 2021-05-05 11:27:24 -07:00
mincore.c inode: make init and permission helpers idmapped mount aware 2021-01-24 14:27:16 +01:00
mlock.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
mm_init.c include/linux/page-flags-layout.h: cleanups 2021-04-30 11:20:42 -07:00
mmap_lock.c mm: mmap_lock: add tracepoints around lock acquisition 2020-12-15 12:13:41 -08:00
mmap.c mm/mmap.c: don't unlock VMAs in remap_file_pages() 2021-05-05 11:27:25 -07:00
mmu_gather.c mm: eliminate "expecting prototype" kernel-doc warnings 2021-04-16 16:10:36 -07:00
mmu_notifier.c mm/mmu_notifiers: ensure range_end() is paired with range_start() 2021-03-25 09:22:55 -07:00
mmzone.c mm/lru: replace pgdat lru_lock with lruvec lock 2020-12-15 14:48:04 -08:00
mprotect.c mm/mprotect.c: optimize error detection in do_mprotect_pkey() 2021-02-24 13:38:30 -08:00
mremap.c Revert "mremap: don't allow MREMAP_DONTUNMAP on special_mappings and aio" 2021-04-30 11:20:39 -07:00
msync.c mm/msync: exit early when the flags is an MS_ASYNC and start < vm_start 2021-04-30 11:20:37 -07:00
nommu.c mm/nommu: Fix return type of filemap_map_pages() 2021-01-28 14:10:31 +00:00
oom_kill.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
page_alloc.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
page_counter.c mm: page_counter: mitigate consequences of a page_counter underflow 2021-04-30 11:20:38 -07:00
page_ext.c mm: fix some spelling mistakes in comments 2020-12-15 22:46:19 -08:00
page_idle.c mm: page_idle_get_page() does not need lru_lock 2020-12-15 14:48:03 -08:00
page_io.c swap: fix swapfile read/write offset 2021-03-02 17:25:46 -07:00
page_isolation.c mm/page_isolation: do not isolate the max order page 2020-12-15 12:13:45 -08:00
page_owner.c mm: page_owner: detect page_owner recursion via task_struct 2021-04-30 11:20:36 -07:00
page_poison.c mm: page_poison: print page info when corruption is caught 2021-04-30 11:20:36 -07:00
page_reporting.c mm/page_reporting: use list_entry_is_head() in page_reporting_cycle() 2021-02-24 13:38:30 -08:00
page_reporting.h
page_vma_mapped.c mm/page_vma_mapped.c: add colon to fix kernel-doc markups error for check_pte 2020-12-15 12:13:41 -08:00
page-writeback.c mm: page-writeback: simplify memcg handling in test_clear_page_writeback() 2021-04-30 11:20:37 -07:00
pagewalk.c
percpu-internal.h percpu: make pcpu_nr_empty_pop_pages per chunk type 2021-04-09 13:58:38 +00:00
percpu-km.c
percpu-stats.c percpu: make pcpu_nr_empty_pop_pages per chunk type 2021-04-09 13:58:38 +00:00
percpu-vm.c mm/vmalloc: remove unmap_kernel_range 2021-04-30 11:20:40 -07:00
percpu.c percpu: make pcpu_nr_empty_pop_pages per chunk type 2021-04-09 13:58:38 +00:00
pgalloc-track.h
pgtable-generic.c mm/pgtable-generic.c: optimize the VM_BUG_ON condition in pmdp_huge_clear_flush() 2021-02-24 13:38:30 -08:00
process_vm_access.c mm/process_vm_access.c: remove duplicate include 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
ptdump.c mm: ptdump: fix build failure 2021-04-16 16:10:37 -07:00
readahead.c mm: Implement readahead_control pageset expansion 2021-04-23 10:14:29 +01:00
rmap.c mm: fix some typos and code style problems 2021-05-07 00:26:33 -07:00
rodata_test.c
shmem.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
shuffle.c mm: eliminate "expecting prototype" kernel-doc warnings 2021-04-16 16:10:36 -07:00
shuffle.h
slab_common.c mm/slab_common: provide "slab_merge" option for !IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT) builds 2021-04-30 11:20:36 -07:00
slab.c kasan, mm: integrate slab init_on_free with HW_TAGS 2021-04-30 11:20:41 -07:00
slab.h kasan, mm: integrate slab init_on_alloc with HW_TAGS 2021-04-30 11:20:41 -07:00
slob.c mm: Don't build mm_dump_obj() on CONFIG_PRINTK=n kernels 2021-03-08 14:18:46 -08:00
slub.c kasan, mm: integrate slab init_on_free with HW_TAGS 2021-04-30 11:20:41 -07:00
sparse-vmemmap.c
sparse.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
swap_cgroup.c
swap_slots.c mm/swap_slots.c: remove redundant NULL check 2021-02-24 13:38:28 -08:00
swap_state.c mm: fix some typos and code style problems 2021-05-07 00:26:33 -07:00
swap.c mm: fix some typos and code style problems 2021-05-07 00:26:33 -07:00
swapfile.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
truncate.c mm: stop accounting shadow entries 2021-05-05 11:27:19 -07:00
usercopy.c
userfaultfd.c userfaultfd: add UFFDIO_CONTINUE ioctl 2021-05-05 11:27:22 -07:00
util.c mm/util.c: fix typo 2021-05-05 11:27:25 -07:00
vmacache.c
vmalloc.c drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good 2021-05-07 00:26:34 -07:00
vmpressure.c
vmscan.c mm/mempool: minor coding style tweaks 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00
vmstat.c x86/mm: track linear mapping split events 2021-05-05 11:27:25 -07:00
workingset.c mm: stop accounting shadow entries 2021-05-05 11:27:19 -07:00
z3fold.c mm: fix some typos and code style problems 2021-05-07 00:26:33 -07:00
zbud.c mm: set the sleep_mapped to true for zbud and z3fold 2021-02-26 09:41:01 -08:00
zpool.c mm/zswap: add the flag can_sleep_mapped 2021-02-26 09:41:01 -08:00
zsmalloc.c mm: fix some typos and code style problems 2021-05-07 00:26:33 -07:00
zswap.c mm/zswap.c: switch from strlcpy to strscpy 2021-05-05 11:27:27 -07:00