linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 02/11] kasan: docs: update overview section

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Message-Id: <1486fba8514de3d7db2f47df2192db59228b0a7b.1615559068.git.andreyknvl@google.com>
Date:   Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:24:25 +0100
From:   Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...gle.com>
To:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>,
        Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>
Cc:     Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@...tuozzo.com>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>, kasan-dev@...glegroups.com,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...gle.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 02/11] kasan: docs: update overview section

Update the "Overview" section in KASAN documentation:

- Outline main use cases for each mode.
- Mention that HW_TAGS mode need compiler support too.
- Move the part about SLUB/SLAB support from "Usage" to "Overview".
- Punctuation, readability, and other minor clean-ups.

Signed-off-by: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...gle.com>

---

Changes v1->v2:
- Mention GCC support for HW_TAGS.
---
 Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst | 27 +++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
index b3b2c517db55..2f2697b290d5 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
@@ -11,17 +11,31 @@ designed to find out-of-bound and use-after-free bugs. KASAN has three modes:
 2. software tag-based KASAN (similar to userspace HWASan),
 3. hardware tag-based KASAN (based on hardware memory tagging).
 
-Software KASAN modes (1 and 2) use compile-time instrumentation to insert
-validity checks before every memory access, and therefore require a compiler
+Generic KASAN is mainly used for debugging due to a large memory overhead.
+Software tag-based KASAN can be used for dogfood testing as it has a lower
+memory overhead that allows using it with real workloads. Hardware tag-based
+KASAN comes with low memory and performance overheads and, therefore, can be
+used in production. Either as an in-field memory bug detector or as a security
+mitigation.
+
+Software KASAN modes (#1 and #2) use compile-time instrumentation to insert
+validity checks before every memory access and, therefore, require a compiler
 version that supports that.
 
-Generic KASAN is supported in both GCC and Clang. With GCC it requires version
+Generic KASAN is supported in GCC and Clang. With GCC, it requires version
 8.3.0 or later. Any supported Clang version is compatible, but detection of
 out-of-bounds accesses for global variables is only supported since Clang 11.
 
-Tag-based KASAN is only supported in Clang.
+Software tag-based KASAN mode is only supported in Clang.
 
-Currently generic KASAN is supported for the x86_64, arm, arm64, xtensa, s390
+The hardware KASAN mode (#3) relies on hardware to perform the checks but
+still requires a compiler version that supports memory tagging instructions.
+This mode is supported in GCC 10+ and Clang 11+.
+
+Both software KASAN modes work with SLUB and SLAB memory allocators,
+while the hardware tag-based KASAN currently only supports SLUB.
+
+Currently, generic KASAN is supported for the x86_64, arm, arm64, xtensa, s390,
 and riscv architectures, and tag-based KASAN modes are supported only for arm64.
 
 Usage
@@ -39,9 +53,6 @@ For software modes, you also need to choose between CONFIG_KASAN_OUTLINE and
 CONFIG_KASAN_INLINE. Outline and inline are compiler instrumentation types.
 The former produces smaller binary while the latter is 1.1 - 2 times faster.
 
-Both software KASAN modes work with both SLUB and SLAB memory allocators,
-while the hardware tag-based KASAN currently only support SLUB.
-
 For better error reports that include stack traces, enable CONFIG_STACKTRACE.
 
 To augment reports with last allocation and freeing stack of the physical page,
-- 
2.31.0.rc2.261.g7f71774620-goog