linux-hardening - Re: [PATCH v4 2/2] slab: Introduce kmalloc

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Message-ID: <b17ab23a-b0fb-4fab-afa9-41dfce65675a@oracle.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2025 09:49:22 +0200
From: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@...cle.com>
To: Kees Cook <kees@...nel.org>, Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>
Cc: "Christoph Lameter (Ampere)" <cl@...two.org>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>,
        David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
        Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@....com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@...ux.dev>,
        Hyeonggon Yoo <42.hyeyoo@...il.com>,
        "Gustavo A . R . Silva" <gustavoars@...nel.org>,
        Bill Wendling <morbo@...gle.com>,
        Justin Stitt <justinstitt@...gle.com>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        Przemek Kitszel
 <przemyslaw.kitszel@...el.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@...nel.org>, Nathan Chancellor <nathan@...nel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Nick Desaulniers <nick.desaulniers+lkml@...il.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@...il.com>,
        Tony Ambardar <tony.ambardar@...il.com>,
        Alexander Lobakin <aleksander.lobakin@...el.com>,
        Jan Hendrik Farr <kernel@...rr.cc>,
        Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-hardening@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
        llvm@...ts.linux.dev, Matteo Rizzo <matteorizzo@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 2/2] slab: Introduce kmalloc_obj() and family


On 08/10/2025 06:20, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 07, 2025 at 08:18:28PM +0200, Marco Elver wrote:
>> On Tue, 7 Oct 2025 at 19:47, Christoph Lameter (Ampere) <cl@...two.org> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 7 Oct 2025, Kees Cook wrote:
>>> iOS did go the path of creating basically one slab cache for each
>>> "type" of kmalloc for security reasons.
>>>
>>> See https://security.apple.com/blog/towards-the-next-generation-of-xnu-memory-safety/
>
>> We can get something similar to that with:
>> https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250825154505.1558444-1-elver@google.com/
>> Pending compiler support which is going to become available in a few
>> months (probably).
>> That version used the existing RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES choice of 16 slab
>> caches, but there's no fundamental limitation to go higher.
> 
> Right -- having compiler support for dealing with types at compile time
> means we can create the slab caches statically (instead of any particular
> fixed number, even the 16 from RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES).

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but I think we can already do per-
callsite static caches without specific new compiler support:

struct kmalloc_cache {
     const char *type_name;
     unsigned long caller;
     unsigned int alignment;
     unsigned int size;
     gfp_t gfp_flags;
     // ...
};

extern void *_kmalloc_cache(struct kmalloc_cache *cache);

#define kmalloc_type(type, _gfp_flags) \
     ({ \
         __label__ __here; __here: \
         static struct kmalloc_cache \
             __attribute__((__section__(".kmalloc_caches"))) \
             _cache = { \
                 .type_name = #type, \
                 .caller = (unsigned long)&&__here, \
                 .alignment = alignof(type), \
                 .size = sizeof(type), \
                 .gfp_flags = (_gfp_flags), \
             }; \
         (type *) _kmalloc_cache(&_cache); \
     })

struct device {
     int name[32];
     void *priv;
};

int foo()
{
     struct device *dev = kmalloc_type(struct device, GFP_KERNEL);
     // ...
}

// initialize all static kmalloc caches during boot if needed
// (requires linker script support)

extern struct kmalloc_cache kmalloc_caches_start[];
extern struct kmalloc_cache kmalloc_caches_end[];

void init_cache(struct kmalloc_cache *)
{
     // ...
}

void init_caches()
{
     for (struct kmalloc_cache *cache = kmalloc_caches_start;
         cache != kmalloc_caches_end; ++cache)
     {
         init_cache(cache);
     }
}

Godbolt for playing with it: https://godbolt.org/z/E1c6q9avn

If you really want just one cache per type, you can funnel all the
callers through a single function (single allocation point)?


Vegard