linux-toradex.git/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt, branch v3.10.78

perf: Drop sample rate when sampling is too slow

2014-06-11T19:03:26+00:00

commit 14c63f17b1fde5a575a28e96547a22b451c71fb5 upstream.

This patch keeps track of how long perf's NMI handler is taking,
and also calculates how many samples perf can take a second.  If
the sample length times the expected max number of samples
exceeds a configurable threshold, it drops the sample rate.

This way, we don't have a runaway sampling process eating up the
CPU.

This patch can tend to drop the sample rate down to level where
perf doesn't work very well.  *BUT* the alternative is that my
system hangs because it spends all of its time handling NMIs.

I'll take a busted performance tool over an entire system that's
busted and undebuggable any day.

BTW, my suspicion is that there's still an underlying bug here.
Using the HPET instead of the TSC is definitely a contributing
factor, but I suspect there are some other things going on.
But, I can't go dig down on a bug like that with my machine
hanging all the time.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen 
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra 
Cc: paulus@samba.org
Cc: acme@ghostprotocols.net
Cc: Dave Hansen 
[ Prettified it a bit. ]
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Weng Meiling 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

vsprintf: check real user/group id for %pK

2013-12-04T18:56:06+00:00

commit 312b4e226951f707e120b95b118cbc14f3d162b2 upstream.

Some setuid binaries will allow reading of files which have read
permission by the real user id.  This is problematic with files which
use %pK because the file access permission is checked at open() time,
but the kptr_restrict setting is checked at read() time.  If a setuid
binary opens a %pK file as an unprivileged user, and then elevates
permissions before reading the file, then kernel pointer values may be
leaked.

This happens for example with the setuid pppd application on Ubuntu 12.04:

  $ head -1 /proc/kallsyms
  00000000 T startup_32

  $ pppd file /proc/kallsyms
  pppd: In file /proc/kallsyms: unrecognized option 'c1000000'

This will only leak the pointer value from the first line, but other
setuid binaries may leak more information.

Fix this by adding a check that in addition to the current process having
CAP_SYSLOG, that effective user and group ids are equal to the real ids.
If a setuid binary reads the contents of a file which uses %pK then the
pointer values will be printed as NULL if the real user is unprivileged.

Update the sysctl documentation to reflect the changes, and also correct
the documentation to state the kptr_restrict=0 is the default.

This is a only temporary solution to the issue.  The correct solution is
to do the permission check at open() time on files, and to replace %pK
with a function which checks the open() time permission.  %pK uses in
printk should be removed since no sane permission check can be done, and
instead protected by using dmesg_restrict.

Signed-off-by: Ryan Mallon 
Cc: Kees Cook 
Cc: Alexander Viro 
Cc: Joe Perches 
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt: document /proc/sys/shmall

2013-01-05T00:11:46+00:00

Signed-off-by: Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez 
Cc: Rob Landley 
Cc: Larry Finger 
Cc: Neil Horman 
Cc: Mitsuo Hayasaka 
Cc: Tejun Heo 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

ipc: add sysctl to specify desired next object id

2013-01-05T00:11:45+00:00

Add 3 new variables and sysctls to tune them (by one "next_id" variable
for messages, semaphores and shared memory respectively).  This variable
can be used to set desired id for next allocated IPC object.  By default
it's equal to -1 and old behaviour is preserved.  If this variable is
non-negative, then desired idr will be extracted from it and used as a
start value to search for free IDR slot.

Notes:

1) this patch doesn't guarantee that the new object will have desired
   id.  So it's up to user space how to handle new object with wrong id.

2) After a sucessful id allocation attempt, "next_id" will be set back
   to -1 (if it was non-negative).

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: checkpatch fixes]
Signed-off-by: Stanislav Kinsbursky 
Cc: Serge Hallyn 
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" 
Cc: Pavel Emelyanov 
Cc: Al Viro 
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro 
Cc: Michael Kerrisk 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

coredump: add support for %d=__get_dumpable() in core name

2012-10-05T18:05:15+00:00

Some coredump handlers want to create a core file in a way compatible with
standard behavior.  Standard behavior with fs.suid_dumpable = 2 is to
create core file with uid=gid=0.  However, there was no way for coredump
handler to know that the process being dumped was suid'ed.

This patch adds the new %d specifier for format_corename() which simply
reports __get_dumpable(mm->flags), this is compatible with
/proc/sys/fs/suid_dumpable we already have.

Addresses https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=787135

Developed during a discussion with Denys Vlasenko.

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov 
Cc: Denys Vlasenko 
Cc: Alex Kelly 
Cc: Andi Kleen 
Cc: Cong Wang 
Cc: Jiri Moskovcak 
Acked-by: Neil Horman 
Cc: Alan Cox 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Documentation: add missing tainted bits to Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt

2012-02-07T00:29:19+00:00

Two of the bits in the tainted flag are not documented.

Signed-off-by: Larry Finger 
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

sysctl: add the kernel.ns_last_pid control

2012-01-13T04:13:11+00:00

The sysctl works on the current task's pid namespace, getting and setting
its last_pid field.

Writing is allowed for CAP_SYS_ADMIN-capable tasks thus making it possible
to create a task with desired pid value.  This ability is required badly
for the checkpoint/restore in userspace.

This approach suits all the parties for now.

Signed-off-by: Pavel Emelyanov 
Acked-by: Tejun Heo 
Cc: Oleg Nesterov 
Cc: Cyrill Gorcunov 
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" 
Cc: Serge Hallyn 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

x86: Panic on detection of stack overflow

2011-12-05T10:37:47+00:00

Currently, messages are just output on the detection of stack
overflow, which is not sufficient for systems that need a
high reliability. This is because in general the overflow may
corrupt data, and the additional corruption may occur due to
reading them unless systems stop.

This patch adds the sysctl parameter
kernel.panic_on_stackoverflow and causes a panic when detecting
the overflows of kernel, IRQ and exception stacks except user
stack according to the parameter. It is disabled by default.

Signed-off-by: Mitsuo Hayasaka 
Cc: yrl.pp-manager.tt@hitachi.com
Cc: Randy Dunlap 
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" 
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20111129060836.11076.12323.stgit@ltc219.sdl.hitachi.co.jp
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar

kernel/sysctl.c: add cap_last_cap to /proc/sys/kernel

2011-11-01T00:30:53+00:00

Userspace needs to know the highest valid capability of the running
kernel, which right now cannot reliably be retrieved from the header files
only.  The fact that this value cannot be determined properly right now
creates various problems for libraries compiled on newer header files
which are run on older kernels.  They assume capabilities are available
which actually aren't.  libcap-ng is one example.  And we ran into the
same problem with systemd too.

Now the capability is exported in /proc/sys/kernel/cap_last_cap.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make cap_last_cap const, per Ulrich]
Signed-off-by: Dan Ballard 
Cc: Randy Dunlap 
Cc: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Lennart Poettering 
Cc: Kay Sievers 
Cc: Ulrich Drepper 
Cc: James Morris 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

ipc: introduce shm_rmid_forced sysctl

2011-07-26T23:49:44+00:00

Add support for the shm_rmid_forced sysctl.  If set to 1, all shared
memory objects in current ipc namespace will be automatically forced to
use IPC_RMID.

The POSIX way of handling shmem allows one to create shm objects and
call shmdt(), leaving shm object associated with no process, thus
consuming memory not counted via rlimits.

With shm_rmid_forced=1 the shared memory object is counted at least for
one process, so OOM killer may effectively kill the fat process holding
the shared memory.

It obviously breaks POSIX - some programs relying on the feature would
stop working.  So set shm_rmid_forced=1 only if you're sure nobody uses
"orphaned" memory.  Use shm_rmid_forced=0 by default for compatability
reasons.

The feature was previously impemented in -ow as a configure option.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix documentation, per Randy]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix warning]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: readability/conventionality tweaks]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix shm_rmid_forced/shm_forced_rmid confusion, use standard comment layout]
Signed-off-by: Vasiliy Kulikov 
Cc: Randy Dunlap 
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" 
Cc: "Serge E. Hallyn" 
Cc: Daniel Lezcano 
Cc: Oleg Nesterov 
Cc: Tejun Heo 
Cc: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Alan Cox 
Cc: Solar Designer 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds