[PATCH 6.19 188/311] x86/kexec: Disable KCOV instrumentation after load_segments()

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-04-08T18:57:49Z

From: Aleksandr Nogikh <nogikh@google.com>

commit 917e3ad3321e75ca0223d5ccf26ceda116aa51e1 upstream.

The load_segments() function changes segment registers, invalidating GS base
(which KCOV relies on for per-cpu data). When CONFIG_KCOV is enabled, any
subsequent instrumented C code call (e.g. native_gdt_invalidate()) begins
crashing the kernel in an endless loop.

To reproduce the problem, it's sufficient to do kexec on a KCOV-instrumented
kernel:

$ kexec -l /boot/otherKernel
$ kexec -e

The real-world context for this problem is enabling crash dump collection in
syzkaller. For this, the tool loads a panic kernel before fuzzing and then
calls makedumpfile after the panic. This workflow requires both CONFIG_KEXEC
and CONFIG_KCOV to be enabled simultaneously.

Adding safeguards directly to the KCOV fast-path (__sanitizer_cov_trace_pc())
is also undesirable as it would introduce an extra performance overhead.

Disabling instrumentation for the individual functions would be too fragile,
so disable KCOV instrumentation for the entire machine_kexec_64.c and
physaddr.c. If coverage-guided fuzzing ever needs these components in the
future, other approaches should be considered.

The problem is not relevant for 32 bit kernels as CONFIG_KCOV is not supported
there.

[ bp: Space out comment for better readability. ]

Fixes: 0d345996e4cb ("x86/kernel: increase kcov coverage under arch/x86/kernel folder")
Signed-off-by: Aleksandr Nogikh <nogikh@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260325154825.551191-1-nogikh@google.com
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
arch/x86/kernel/Makefile | 14 ++++++++++++++
arch/x86/mm/Makefile | 2 ++
2 files changed, 16 insertions(+)

--- a/arch/x86/kernel/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/Makefile
@@ -44,6 +44,20 @@ KCOV_INSTRUMENT_unwind_orc.o := n
KCOV_INSTRUMENT_unwind_frame.o := n
KCOV_INSTRUMENT_unwind_guess.o := n

+# Disable KCOV to prevent crashes during kexec: load_segments() invalidates
+# the GS base, which KCOV relies on for per-CPU data.
+#
+# As KCOV and KEXEC compatibility should be preserved (e.g. syzkaller is
+# using it to collect crash dumps during kernel fuzzing), disabling
+# KCOV for KEXEC kernels is not an option. Selectively disabling KCOV
+# instrumentation for individual affected functions can be fragile, while
+# adding more checks to KCOV would slow it down.
+#
+# As a compromise solution, disable KCOV instrumentation for the whole
+# source code file. If its coverage is ever needed, other approaches
+# should be considered.
+KCOV_INSTRUMENT_machine_kexec_64.o := n
+
CFLAGS_head32.o := -fno-stack-protector
CFLAGS_head64.o := -fno-stack-protector
CFLAGS_irq.o := -I $(src)/../include/asm/trace
--- a/arch/x86/mm/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/Makefile
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ KCOV_INSTRUMENT_tlb.o := n
KCOV_INSTRUMENT_mem_encrypt.o := n
KCOV_INSTRUMENT_mem_encrypt_amd.o := n
KCOV_INSTRUMENT_pgprot.o := n
+# See the "Disable KCOV" comment in arch/x86/kernel/Makefile.
+KCOV_INSTRUMENT_physaddr.o := n

KASAN_SANITIZE_mem_encrypt.o := n
KASAN_SANITIZE_mem_encrypt_amd.o := n