printk: clarify the documentation for plain pointer printing

We have several modifiers for plain pointers (%p, %px and %pK) and now
also the no_hash_pointers boot parameter. The documentation should help
to choose which variant to use. Importantly, we should discourage %px
in favor of %p (with the new boot parameter when debugging), and stress
that %pK should be only used for procfs and similar files, not dmesg
buffer. This patch clarifies the documentation in that regard.

Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Reviewed-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20210225164639.27212-1-vbabka@suse.cz
This commit is contained in:
Vlastimil Babka 2021-02-25 17:46:39 +01:00 committed by Petr Mladek
parent ea35d86778
commit a48849e235
2 changed files with 30 additions and 3 deletions

View File

@ -79,7 +79,19 @@ Pointers printed without a specifier extension (i.e unadorned %p) are
hashed to prevent leaking information about the kernel memory layout. This
has the added benefit of providing a unique identifier. On 64-bit machines
the first 32 bits are zeroed. The kernel will print ``(ptrval)`` until it
gathers enough entropy. If you *really* want the address see %px below.
gathers enough entropy.
When possible, use specialised modifiers such as %pS or %pB (described below)
to avoid the need of providing an unhashed address that has to be interpreted
post-hoc. If not possible, and the aim of printing the address is to provide
more information for debugging, use %p and boot the kernel with the
``no_hash_pointers`` parameter during debugging, which will print all %p
addresses unmodified. If you *really* always want the unmodified address, see
%px below.
If (and only if) you are printing addresses as a content of a virtual file in
e.g. procfs or sysfs (using e.g. seq_printf(), not printk()) read by a
userspace process, use the %pK modifier described below instead of %p or %px.
Error Pointers
--------------
@ -139,6 +151,11 @@ For printing kernel pointers which should be hidden from unprivileged
users. The behaviour of %pK depends on the kptr_restrict sysctl - see
Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst for more details.
This modifier is *only* intended when producing content of a file read by
userspace from e.g. procfs or sysfs, not for dmesg. Please refer to the
section about %p above for discussion about how to manage hashing pointers
in printk().
Unmodified Addresses
--------------------
@ -153,6 +170,13 @@ equivalent to %lx (or %lu). %px is preferred because it is more uniquely
grep'able. If in the future we need to modify the way the kernel handles
printing pointers we will be better equipped to find the call sites.
Before using %px, consider if using %p is sufficient together with enabling the
``no_hash_pointers`` kernel parameter during debugging sessions (see the %p
description above). One valid scenario for %px might be printing information
immediately before a panic, which prevents any sensitive information to be
exploited anyway, and with %px there would be no need to reproduce the panic
with no_hash_pointers.
Pointer Differences
-------------------

View File

@ -2189,7 +2189,9 @@ early_param("no_hash_pointers", no_hash_pointers_enable);
* Implements a "recursive vsnprintf".
* Do not use this feature without some mechanism to verify the
* correctness of the format string and va_list arguments.
* - 'K' For a kernel pointer that should be hidden from unprivileged users
* - 'K' For a kernel pointer that should be hidden from unprivileged users.
* Use only for procfs, sysfs and similar files, not printk(); please
* read the documentation (path below) first.
* - 'NF' For a netdev_features_t
* - 'h[CDN]' For a variable-length buffer, it prints it as a hex string with
* a certain separator (' ' by default):
@ -2228,7 +2230,8 @@ early_param("no_hash_pointers", no_hash_pointers_enable);
* Without an option prints the full name of the node
* f full name
* P node name, including a possible unit address
* - 'x' For printing the address. Equivalent to "%lx".
* - 'x' For printing the address unmodified. Equivalent to "%lx".
* Please read the documentation (path below) before using!
* - '[ku]s' For a BPF/tracing related format specifier, e.g. used out of
* bpf_trace_printk() where [ku] prefix specifies either kernel (k)
* or user (u) memory to probe, and: