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* [PATCH v3 0/7] sched: Add support for long task name
@ 2026-06-12 16:20 André Almeida
  2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 1/7] sched: Update get_task_comm() comment André Almeida
                   ` (6 more replies)
  0 siblings, 7 replies; 9+ messages in thread
From: André Almeida @ 2026-06-12 16:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Peter Zijlstra, Juri Lelli, Vincent Guittot, Steven Rostedt,
	Christian Brauner, Kees Cook, Shuah Khan, willy,
	mathieu.desnoyers, David Laight, Linus Torvalds, akpm,
	Yafang Shao, andrii.nakryiko, arnaldo.melo, Petr Mladek
  Cc: linux-kernel, kernel-dev, linux-mm, linux-api, André Almeida

* Use case

When debugging and tracing complex programs with hundreds of threads, 16 bytes
long thread names are not enough anymore. cmd_line can show a lot of
characters, but it's not affected by pthread_setname_np() or
prctl(PR_SET_NAME), so let's give the same love kthreads got with commit
6b59808bfe48 ("workqueue: Show the latest workqueue name in 
/proc/PID/{comm,stat,status}"). This work creates a new
PR_{SET,GET}_EXT_NAME that supports 64 bytes long names.

It also introduces a new function copy_task_comm() that ensures that the string
is always NUL-terminated despite of mismatching sizes of buffers. We can't just
use strscpy() because it proved to give some overhead[0] in tracing.

* Patchset

Patch 1 is just a minor comment update.

Patch 2 and 3 do some prep work in order to avoid buffer overflows around
the kernel, now that current->comm is bigger. It also make sure that if
the destination buffer is smaller than TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN, it will
be NUL-terminated.

Patch 4 adds a KUnit for the new function copy_task_comm()

Patch 5 sets current->comm length to TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN and take care of
making sure that current userspace APIs gets only TASK_COMM_LEN.

Patch 6 creates new prctl() to set and get all the TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN bytes.

Patch 7 adapts the existing selftest for this new interface.

* Testing

selftests/prctl/set-process-name.c survives this patchset, and it was extended
to the new interface. KUnit test was modified to support copy_task_comm().

I ran the same benchmark as at [0], and the result shows a increase of 0.7% of
overhead when running `perf stat -r 100 hackbench` with sched trace events
enabled (`trace-cmd start -e sched`):

Without this patchset:

 213,745,340 cycles:u # 0.119 GHz ( +-  0.33% )

After:

 215,111,672 cycles:u # 0.119 GHz ( +-  0.36% )

* Changes

Since v2:
 - Add a custom function copy_task_comm() that uses memcpy when possible and
 fallback to strscpy(). It always ensures that the string in NUL-terminated
 - Add KUnit test for the new function
 - Link to v2: https://patch.msgid.link/20260524-tonyk-long_name-v2-0-332f6bd041c4@igalia.com

Since v1:
 - Replace new strtostr() with strscpy()
 - Don't replace memcpy in tools/
 - Link to v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20260517-tonyk-long_name-v1-0-3c282eaa91e2@igalia.com

[0] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260526190625.3f4aca0a@gandalf.local.home/

---
André Almeida (7):
      sched: Update get_task_comm() comment
      treewide: Get rid of get_task_comm()
      treewide: Replace memcpy(..., current->comm) with copy_task_comm()
      lib/string_kunit: Add test for copy_task_comm()
      sched: Extend task command name with TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN
      prctl: Add support for long user thread names
      selftests: prctl: Add test for long thread names

 drivers/connector/cn_proc.c                        |  2 +-
 drivers/dma-buf/sw_sync.c                          |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_amdkfd_fence.c   |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_eviction_fence.c |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_ras.c            |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_userq_fence.c    |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_vm.c             |  4 +--
 drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_vram_mgr.c       |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/lima/lima_ctx.c                    |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/panfrost/panfrost_gem.c            |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/panthor/panthor_gem.c              |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/panthor/panthor_sched.c            |  2 +-
 drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_ioctl.c             |  2 +-
 drivers/hwtracing/stm/core.c                       |  2 +-
 drivers/tty/tty_audit.c                            |  2 +-
 fs/binfmt_elf.c                                    |  2 +-
 fs/binfmt_elf_fdpic.c                              |  2 +-
 fs/proc/array.c                                    |  2 +-
 include/linux/coredump.h                           |  2 +-
 include/linux/sched.h                              | 35 ++++++++++----------
 include/linux/tracepoint.h                         |  4 +--
 include/trace/events/block.h                       | 10 +++---
 include/trace/events/coredump.h                    |  2 +-
 include/trace/events/f2fs.h                        |  4 +--
 include/trace/events/oom.h                         |  2 +-
 include/trace/events/osnoise.h                     |  2 +-
 include/trace/events/sched.h                       | 10 +++---
 include/trace/events/signal.h                      |  2 +-
 include/trace/events/task.h                        |  7 ++--
 include/uapi/linux/prctl.h                         |  3 ++
 kernel/audit.c                                     |  6 ++--
 kernel/auditsc.c                                   |  6 ++--
 kernel/printk/nbcon.c                              |  2 +-
 kernel/printk/printk.c                             |  4 +--
 kernel/sys.c                                       | 23 ++++++++++---
 lib/tests/string_kunit.c                           | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c                           |  2 +-
 net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c                      |  4 ++-
 security/integrity/integrity_audit.c               |  3 +-
 security/ipe/audit.c                               |  3 +-
 security/landlock/domain.c                         |  2 +-
 security/lsm_audit.c                               |  7 ++--
 tools/testing/selftests/prctl/set-process-name.c   | 36 ++++++++++++++++++++
 43 files changed, 178 insertions(+), 79 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 5d6919055dec134de3c40167a490f33c74c12581
change-id: 20260516-tonyk-long_name-b9f345aeb041

Best regards,
--  
André Almeida <andrealmeid@igalia.com>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2026-06-12 18:53 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 9+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2026-06-12 16:20 [PATCH v3 0/7] sched: Add support for long task name André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 1/7] sched: Update get_task_comm() comment André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 2/7] treewide: Get rid of get_task_comm() André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 3/7] treewide: Replace memcpy(..., current->comm) with copy_task_comm() André Almeida
2026-06-12 18:53   ` David Laight
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 4/7] lib/string_kunit: Add test for copy_task_comm() André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 5/7] sched: Extend task command name with TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 6/7] prctl: Add support for long user thread names André Almeida
2026-06-12 16:20 ` [PATCH v3 7/7] selftests: prctl: Add test for long " André Almeida

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