Re: [PATCH] mm: page_counter: reject empty string in page_counter_memparse()

[Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@linux.dev>]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2026 at 12:26:52PM +0800, Tao Cui wrote:
> From: Tao Cui <cuitao@kylinos.cn>
> 
> memparse() consumes no characters on an empty input and leaves the
> end pointer at the terminating NUL.  The only validation in
> page_counter_memparse() checks for trailing characters, so an empty
> input slips through and the limit becomes 0.
> 
> All limit write callbacks of the memory controller strstrip() the
> input before calling this helper, so a script that writes an unset
> variable hits this path:
> 
>   LIMIT=
>   echo "$LIMIT" > $CG/memory.max
>   echo $?
>   0
>   cat $CG/memory.max
>   0
> 
> Nothing reports the mistake: the limit is now 0 and the OOM killer
> goes after every task in the cgroup.  The same happens for
> memory.min, memory.low, memory.high, memory.swap.high,
> memory.swap.max and memory.zswap.max, where 0 silently removes the
> protection or disables swap and zswap.
> 
> Reject the input when no characters were consumed, which is the one
> case the trailing-character check cannot catch.
> 
> Fixes: 3e32cb2e0a12 ("mm: memcontrol: lockless page counters")
> Signed-off-by: Tao Cui <cuitao@kylinos.cn>
> ---
>  mm/page_counter.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/page_counter.c b/mm/page_counter.c
> index 661e0f2a5127..d14db705b04f 100644
> --- a/mm/page_counter.c
> +++ b/mm/page_counter.c
> @@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ int page_counter_memparse(const char *buf, const char *max,
>  	}
>  
>  	bytes = memparse(buf, &end);
> -	if (*end != '\0')
> +	if (*end != '\0' || end == buf)
>  		return -EINVAL;

I wonder if someone started depending on this behavior. In that case it is
better to return error instead of silently ignore, so we will hear complains
loudly. This looks good to me.

Acked-by: Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@linux.dev>


>  
>  	*nr_pages = min(bytes / PAGE_SIZE, (u64)PAGE_COUNTER_MAX);
> -- 
> 2.43.0
>