linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 09/11] kcov: add ioctl(KCOV_RESET

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Message-ID: <20250626134158.3385080-10-glider@google.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:41:56 +0200
From: Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>
To: glider@...gle.com
Cc: quic_jiangenj@...cinc.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	kasan-dev@...glegroups.com, Aleksandr Nogikh <nogikh@...gle.com>, 
	Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...il.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, 
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>, Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>, 
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...nel.org>, Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>, 
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Subject: [PATCH v2 09/11] kcov: add ioctl(KCOV_RESET_TRACE)

Provide a mechanism to reset the coverage for the current task
without writing directly to the coverage buffer.
This is slower, but allows the fuzzers to map the coverage buffer
as read-only, making it harder to corrupt.

Signed-off-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>

---
v2:
 - Update code to match the new description of struct kcov_state
---
 Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 include/uapi/linux/kcov.h        |  1 +
 kernel/kcov.c                    | 15 +++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 42 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
index 6446887cd1c92..e215c0651e16d 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
@@ -470,3 +470,29 @@ local tasks spawned by the process and the global task that handles USB bus #1:
 		perror("close"), exit(1);
 	return 0;
     }
+
+
+Resetting coverage with an KCOV_RESET_TRACE
+-------------------------------------------
+
+The ``KCOV_RESET_TRACE`` ioctl provides a mechanism to clear collected coverage
+data for the current task. It resets the program counter (PC) trace and, if
+``KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE`` mode is active, also zeroes the associated bitmap.
+
+The primary use case for this ioctl is to enhance safety during fuzzing.
+Normally, a user could map the kcov buffer with ``PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE`` and
+reset the trace from the user-space program. However, when fuzzing system calls,
+the kernel itself might inadvertently write to this shared buffer, corrupting
+the coverage data.
+
+To prevent this, a fuzzer can map the buffer with ``PROT_READ`` and use
+``ioctl(fd, KCOV_RESET_TRACE, 0)`` to safely clear the buffer from the kernel
+side before each fuzzing iteration.
+
+Note that:
+
+* This ioctl is safer but slower than directly writing to the shared memory
+  buffer due to the overhead of a system call.
+* ``KCOV_RESET_TRACE`` is itself a system call, and its execution will be traced
+  by kcov. Consequently, immediately after the ioctl returns, cover[0] will be
+  greater than 0.
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h b/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
index e743ee011eeca..8ab77cc3afa76 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ struct kcov_remote_arg {
 #define KCOV_DISABLE			_IO('c', 101)
 #define KCOV_REMOTE_ENABLE		_IOW('c', 102, struct kcov_remote_arg)
 #define KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE		_IOW('c', 103, unsigned long)
+#define KCOV_RESET_TRACE		_IO('c', 104)
 
 enum {
 	/*
diff --git a/kernel/kcov.c b/kernel/kcov.c
index 2a4edbaad50d0..1693004d89764 100644
--- a/kernel/kcov.c
+++ b/kernel/kcov.c
@@ -740,6 +740,21 @@ static int kcov_ioctl_locked(struct kcov *kcov, unsigned int cmd,
 		return 0;
 	case KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE:
 		return kcov_handle_unique_enable(kcov, arg);
+	case KCOV_RESET_TRACE:
+		unused = arg;
+		if (unused != 0 || current->kcov != kcov)
+			return -EINVAL;
+		t = current;
+		if (WARN_ON(kcov->t != t))
+			return -EINVAL;
+		mode = kcov->mode;
+		if (mode < KCOV_MODE_TRACE_PC)
+			return -EINVAL;
+		if (kcov->state.bitmap)
+			bitmap_zero(kcov->state.bitmap,
+				    kcov->state.bitmap_size);
+		WRITE_ONCE(kcov->state.trace[0], 0);
+		return 0;
 	case KCOV_DISABLE:
 		/* Disable coverage for the current task. */
 		unused = arg;
-- 
2.50.0.727.gbf7dc18ff4-goog