linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] mm, vmstat: hide /proc/pagetypeinfo from normal users

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Message-ID: <48c4b79b-d2e6-684c-2d0e-7693985817f1@redhat.com>
Date:   Wed, 23 Oct 2019 10:52:44 -0400
From:   Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>
Cc:     Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>, Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Konstantin Khlebnikov <khlebnikov@...dex-team.ru>,
        Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>, Song Liu <songliubraving@...com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Rafael Aquini <aquini@...hat.com>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] mm, vmstat: hide /proc/pagetypeinfo from normal
 users

On 10/23/19 6:27 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
> From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
>
> /proc/pagetypeinfo is a debugging tool to examine internal page
> allocator state wrt to fragmentation. It is not very useful for
> any other use so normal users really do not need to read this file.
>
> Waiman Long has noticed that reading this file can have negative side
> effects because zone->lock is necessary for gathering data and that
> a) interferes with the page allocator and its users and b) can lead to
> hard lockups on large machines which have very long free_list.
>
> Reduce both issues by simply not exporting the file to regular users.
>
> Reported-by: Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>
> Cc: stable
> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
> ---
>  mm/vmstat.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/vmstat.c b/mm/vmstat.c
> index 6afc892a148a..4e885ecd44d1 100644
> --- a/mm/vmstat.c
> +++ b/mm/vmstat.c
> @@ -1972,7 +1972,7 @@ void __init init_mm_internals(void)
>  #endif
>  #ifdef CONFIG_PROC_FS
>  	proc_create_seq("buddyinfo", 0444, NULL, &fragmentation_op);
> -	proc_create_seq("pagetypeinfo", 0444, NULL, &pagetypeinfo_op);
> +	proc_create_seq("pagetypeinfo", 0400, NULL, &pagetypeinfo_op);
>  	proc_create_seq("vmstat", 0444, NULL, &vmstat_op);
>  	proc_create_seq("zoneinfo", 0444, NULL, &zoneinfo_op);
>  #endif

Acked-by: Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>