From: Muhammad Usama Anjum <usama.anjum@arm.com>
To: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@redhat.com>,
Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>,
Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>,
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
Ben Segall <bsegall@google.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>,
Valentin Schneider <vschneid@redhat.com>,
Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>,
Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>,
"Liam R. Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@oracle.com>,
Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>,
Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>,
Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>,
Uladzislau Rezki <urezki@gmail.com>,
linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-mm@kvack.org, Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@gmail.com>,
Marco Elver <elver@google.com>,
Vincenzo Frascino <vincenzo.frascino@arm.com>,
Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com>,
Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>,
Ryan.Roberts@arm.com, david.hildenbrand@arm.com
Cc: Muhammad Usama Anjum <usama.anjum@arm.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 0/3] KASAN: HW_TAGS: Disable tagging for stack and page-tables
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:26:26 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260324132631.482520-1-usama.anjum@arm.com> (raw)
Stacks and page tables are always accessed with the match‑all tag,
so assigning a new random tag every time at allocation and setting
invalid tag at deallocation time, just adds overhead without improving
the detection.
With __GFP_SKIP_KASAN the page keeps its poison tag and KASAN_TAG_KERNEL
(match-all tag) is stored in the page flags while keeping the poison tag
in the hardware. The benefit of it is that 256 tag setting instruction
per 4 kB page aren't needed at allocation and deallocation time.
Thus match‑all pointers still work, while non‑match tags (other than
poison tag) still fault.
__GFP_SKIP_KASAN only skips for KASAN_HW_TAGS mode, so coverage is
unchanged.
Benchmark:
The benchmark has two modes. In thread mode, the child process forks
and creates N threads. In pgtable mode, the parent maps and faults a
specified memory size and then forks repeatedly with children exiting
immediately.
Thread benchmark:
2000 iterations, 2000 threads: 2.575 s → 2.229 s (~13.4% faster)
The pgtable samples:
- 2048 MB, 2000 iters 19.08 s → 17.62 s (~7.6% faster)
---
Changes since v1: (summary only)
- Update description/title
- Patch 1: Simplify skip conditions based on the fact that __GFP_SKIP_KASAN
- Patch 2: Specify _GFP_SKIP_KASAN in THREADINFO_GFP and GFP_VMAP_STACK
Muhammad Usama Anjum (3):
vmalloc: add __GFP_SKIP_KASAN support
kasan: skip HW tagging for all kernel thread stacks
mm: skip KASAN tagging for page-allocated page tables
include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h | 2 +-
include/linux/thread_info.h | 2 +-
kernel/fork.c | 5 +++--
mm/vmalloc.c | 11 ++++++++---
4 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
--
2.47.3
next reply other threads:[~2026-03-24 13:26 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-03-24 13:26 Muhammad Usama Anjum [this message]
2026-03-24 13:26 ` [PATCH v2 1/3] vmalloc: add __GFP_SKIP_KASAN support Muhammad Usama Anjum
2026-03-24 13:26 ` [PATCH v2 2/3] kasan: skip HW tagging for all kernel thread stacks Muhammad Usama Anjum
2026-03-24 13:26 ` [PATCH v2 3/3] mm: skip KASAN tagging for page-allocated page tables Muhammad Usama Anjum
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