From: Karl Mehltretter <kmehltretter@gmail.com>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@gmail.com>,
Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>,
Marco Elver <elver@google.com>,
Bradley Morgan <include@grrlz.net>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>,
Anna-Maria Behnsen <anna-maria@linutronix.de>,
Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@redhat.com>,
Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>,
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>,
Clark Williams <clrkwllms@kernel.org>,
linux-rt-devel@lists.linux.dev, kasan-dev@googlegroups.com,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 0/5] kcov: suppress timer and scheduler coverage leaks
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2026 22:50:22 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260807205027.31972-1-kmehltretter@gmail.com> (raw)
KCOV excludes interrupt and scheduler coverage so syscall coverage stays
input-dependent. Instrumented callees can still record when uninstrumented
timer and scheduler paths run with in_task() true.
CONFIG_KCOV_SELFTEST [1] exposes three cases on x86-64: deferred
hrtimer rearm, __schedule() callees and PREEMPT_RT wakeups. Task-context
wakeups and new-task enqueue also add scheduler coverage to ordinary
syscalls.
Add a nestable KCOV_PAUSED bit. Use it around deferred hrtimer rearm,
__schedule(), try_to_wake_up() and wake_up_new_task(). This keeps coverage
from their instrumented callees without excluding those callees from real
task-context coverage.
Testing:
- GCC builds across x86-64, arm32, arm64, MIPS32, PowerPC 32/64,
s390, RISC-V 32/64, LoongArch, Xtensa and UML
- x86-64 Clang and KCOV-disabled builds
- KCOV selftest, 10/10 x86-64 boots with and without PREEMPT_RT
- KCOV selftest, 3/3 RISC-V 32/64, LoongArch and s390 boots after
isolating unrelated architecture entry leaks
- 40 dummy_hcd/g_zero remote-KCOV cycles on x86-64 and arm64
- 400 repeated fork calls on x86-64 PREEMPT_RT
- syzkaller: five one-hour A/B pairs on four 2-vCPU PREEMPT_RT VMs.
At ~110k executions, the five-run median was 4,142 vs. 3,216
corpus entries (+28.8%) and 54,872 vs. 50,940 coverage (+7.7%).
No unsuppressed reports
The USB runs no longer contained the baseline PCs from deferred rearm,
hrtick and scheduler wakeup callees. The fork run no longer contained the
baseline __smp_call_single_queue(), generic_exec_single() or
smp_call_function_single_async() PCs.
With KCOV disabled, the pause calls compile away. With KCOV enabled on
x86-64, __schedule() grows by 117 bytes across patches 2 and 3,
try_to_wake_up() by 106 bytes and wake_up_new_task() by 88 bytes.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260724192122.73080-1-kmehltretter@gmail.com/
Karl Mehltretter (5):
kcov: add kcov_pause()/kcov_resume() helpers
hrtimer: pause KCOV during deferred rearm
sched: pause KCOV in __schedule()
sched: pause KCOV in try_to_wake_up()
sched: pause KCOV in wake_up_new_task()
include/linux/hrtimer_rearm.h | 18 ++++++++++++++++--
include/linux/kcov.h | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
kernel/kcov.c | 2 +-
kernel/sched/core.c | 15 ++++++++++++++-
4 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
base-commit: 8ba098e6b6ff0db8edf28528d1552be261af30d4
next reply other threads:[~2026-08-07 20:50 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-08-07 20:50 Karl Mehltretter [this message]
2026-08-07 20:50 ` [PATCH 4/5] sched: pause KCOV in try_to_wake_up() Karl Mehltretter
2026-08-07 21:00 ` sashiko-bot
2026-08-08 1:28 ` Bradley Morgan
2026-08-08 8:44 ` [PATCH 0/5] kcov: suppress timer and scheduler coverage leaks Peter Zijlstra
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