From: Harry Yoo <harry@kernel.org>
To: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Cc: Chris Down <chris@chrisdown.name>,
Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Hao Li <hao.li@linux.dev>, Christoph Lameter <cl@gentwo.org>,
David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>,
Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@linux.dev>,
Marco Elver <elver@google.com>,
GONG Ruiqi <gongruiqi@huaweicloud.com>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-hardening@vger.kernel.org,
linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
kernel-team@meta.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 3/6] mm/slab: Support disabling SLAB_BUCKETS at boot
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2026 18:34:15 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <aud4gPOUzvHtLYnJ@thinkstation> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202610302115.8C7AD110@keescook>
A gentle ping to Kees to hear his thoughts on having a bit more
coarse grained boot parameter e.g.) `slab_hardening=` to specify
how much performance/memory is worth sacrificing for enhanced security.
Quoting an email from [1], Harry Yoo wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 11:27:37PM +0800, Chris Down wrote:
> > Harry Yoo writes:
> > > If we end up supporting boot-time parameters for hardening,
> > > I think it should be all enabled (or disabled) by:
> > >
> > > slab_hardening=none|light|full
> > > # please feel free to suggest bertter names
> > >
> > > none: "Turn of all of them to maximize performance"
> > >
> > > light: "I'm willying to sacrifice _some_ memory and CPU for security"
> > >
> > > full: "I'm willying to sacrifice more overhead for security
> > >
> > > IMHO more fine-grained knob for each feature doesn't make much sense.
> >
> > I think if we did the 4 knobs that is a good idea. Given now it's two, I
> > think it seems reasonable to keep it as two separate knobs unless you
> > object? Otherwise I think given it will only cover the latter two, it
> > should be something like kmalloc_isolation= instead. Let me know what you
> > think.
>
> There has been constant, steady efforts to add more and more hardening
> features over the last decade. So I'd say slab_hardening= is more
> future proof :-)
>
> Kees or Marco might have more insights on this.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/auIVIKxjrdXIaUIY@thinkstation
--
Cheers,
Harry / Hyeonggon
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-11-01 18:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-29 6:07 [PATCH v2 0/6] mm/slab: Support selecting slab hardening features at boot Chris Down
2026-10-29 6:07 ` [PATCH v2 1/6] mm/slab: Enable SLAB_FREELIST_HARDENED by default Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:13 ` Kees Cook
2026-10-29 6:07 ` [PATCH v2 2/6] mm/slab: Enable SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM " Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:15 ` Kees Cook
2026-10-29 6:08 ` [PATCH v2 3/6] mm/slab: Support disabling SLAB_BUCKETS at boot Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:17 ` Kees Cook
2026-11-01 18:34 ` Harry Yoo [this message]
2026-10-29 6:08 ` [PATCH v2 4/6] slub_kunit: Add a test for the slab_buckets boot parameter Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:22 ` Kees Cook
2026-10-29 6:09 ` [PATCH v2 5/6] mm/slab: Support disabling KMALLOC_PARTITION_CACHES at boot Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:28 ` Kees Cook
2026-10-29 6:09 ` [PATCH v2 6/6] slub_kunit: Add a test for the kmalloc_partition boot parameter Chris Down
2026-10-31 4:29 ` Kees Cook
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