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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/powerpc/kasan.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/powerpc/kasan.txt b/Documentation/powerpc/kasan.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..f032b4eaf205 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/powerpc/kasan.txt @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +KASAN is supported on powerpc on 32-bit and Radix 64-bit only. + +32 bit support +============== + +KASAN is supported on both hash and nohash MMUs on 32-bit. + +The shadow area sits at the top of the kernel virtual memory space above the +fixmap area and occupies one eighth of the total kernel virtual memory space. + +Instrumentation of the vmalloc area is optional, unless built with modules, +in which case it is required. + +64 bit support +============== + +Currently, only the radix MMU is supported. There have been versions for hash +and Book3E processors floating around on the mailing list, but nothing has been +merged. + +KASAN support on Book3S is a bit tricky to get right: + + - It would be good to support inline instrumentation so as to be able to catch + stack issues that cannot be caught with outline mode. + + - Inline instrumentation requires a fixed offset. + + - Book3S runs code with translations off ("real mode") during boot, including a + lot of generic device-tree parsing code which is used to determine MMU + features. + + - Some code - most notably a lot of KVM code - also runs with translations off + after boot. + + - Therefore any offset has to point to memory that is valid with + translations on or off. + +One approach is just to give up on inline instrumentation. This way boot-time +checks can be delayed until after the MMU is set is up, and we can just not +instrument any code that runs with translations off after booting. This is the +current approach. + +To avoid this limitiation, the KASAN shadow would have to be placed inside the +linear mapping, using the same high-bits trick we use for the rest of the linear +mapping. This is tricky: + + - We'd like to place it near the start of physical memory. In theory we can do + this at run-time based on how much physical memory we have, but this requires + being able to arbitrarily relocate the kernel, which is basically the tricky + part of KASLR. Not being game to implement both tricky things at once, this + is hopefully something we can revisit once we get KASLR for Book3S. + + - Alternatively, we can place the shadow at the _end_ of memory, but this + requires knowing how much contiguous physical memory a system has _at compile + time_. This is a big hammer, and has some unfortunate consequences: inablity + to handle discontiguous physical memory, total failure to boot on machines + with less memory than specified, and that machines with more memory than + specified can't use it. This was deemed unacceptable. |