FAILED: patch "[PATCH] mm/kfence: disable KFENCE upon KASAN HW tags enablement" failed to apply to 5.15-stable tree

[<gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

The patch below does not apply to the 5.15-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm
tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit
id to <stable@vger.kernel.org>.

To reproduce the conflict and resubmit, you may use the following commands:

git fetch https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/ linux-5.15.y
git checkout FETCH_HEAD
git cherry-pick -x 09833d99db36d74456a4d13eb29c32d56ff8f2b6
# <resolve conflicts, build, test, etc.>
git commit -s
git send-email --to '<stable@vger.kernel.org>' --in-reply-to '2026031757-abreast-angling-34e3@gregkh' --subject-prefix 'PATCH 5.15.y' HEAD^..

Possible dependencies:



thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From 09833d99db36d74456a4d13eb29c32d56ff8f2b6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2026 10:54:10 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] mm/kfence: disable KFENCE upon KASAN HW tags enablement

KFENCE does not currently support KASAN hardware tags.  As a result, the
two features are incompatible when enabled simultaneously.

Given that MTE provides deterministic protection and KFENCE is a
sampling-based debugging tool, prioritize the stronger hardware
protections.  Disable KFENCE initialization and free the pre-allocated
pool if KASAN hardware tags are detected to ensure the system maintains
the security guarantees provided by MTE.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20260213095410.1862978-1-glider@google.com
Fixes: 0ce20dd84089 ("mm: add Kernel Electric-Fence infrastructure")
Signed-off-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Suggested-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@gmail.com>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <ryabinin.a.a@gmail.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: Ernesto Martinez Garcia <ernesto.martinezgarcia@tugraz.at>
Cc: Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>

diff --git a/mm/kfence/core.c b/mm/kfence/core.c
index b4ea3262c925..b5aedf505cec 100644
--- a/mm/kfence/core.c
+++ b/mm/kfence/core.c
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 #include <linux/hash.h>
 #include <linux/irq_work.h>
 #include <linux/jhash.h>
+#include <linux/kasan-enabled.h>
 #include <linux/kcsan-checks.h>
 #include <linux/kfence.h>
 #include <linux/kmemleak.h>
@@ -916,6 +917,20 @@ void __init kfence_alloc_pool_and_metadata(void)
 	if (!kfence_sample_interval)
 		return;
 
+	/*
+	 * If KASAN hardware tags are enabled, disable KFENCE, because it
+	 * does not support MTE yet.
+	 */
+	if (kasan_hw_tags_enabled()) {
+		pr_info("disabled as KASAN HW tags are enabled\n");
+		if (__kfence_pool) {
+			memblock_free(__kfence_pool, KFENCE_POOL_SIZE);
+			__kfence_pool = NULL;
+		}
+		kfence_sample_interval = 0;
+		return;
+	}
+
 	/*
 	 * If the pool has already been initialized by arch, there is no need to
 	 * re-allocate the memory pool.