[PATCH v3] Add kernel config option for tweaking kernel behavior.

From: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Matthew Garrett <mjg59@google.com>,
	Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>,
	"Theodore Y . Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>,
	Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>,
	Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>, Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>,
	Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Subject: [PATCH v3] Add kernel config option for tweaking kernel behavior.
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2020 15:33:17 +0900	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200413063317.7164-1-penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp> (raw)

Existing kernel config options are defined based on "whether you want to
enable this module/feature or not". And such granularity is sometimes
too rough-grained for fuzzing tools which try to find bugs inside each
module/feature.

While syzkaller (one of fuzzing tools) is finding many bugs, sometimes
syzkaller examines stupid operations. Some examples of such operations
are: changing console loglevel which in turn makes it impossible to get
kernel messages when a crash happens, freezing filesystems which in turn
causes khungtaskd to needlessly complain, programmatically sending
Ctrl-Alt-Del which in turn causes the system to needlessly reboot.
Currently we prevent syzkaller from examining stupid operations by
blacklisting syscall arguments and/or disabling whole functionality
using existing kernel config options. But such approach is difficult to
maintain and needlessly prevents fuzzers from testing kernel code. [1]

We want fuzzers to test as much coverage as possible while we want
fuzzers not to try stupid operations. To achieve this goal, we want
cooperation from kernel side, and build-time branching (i.e. kernel
config options) will be the simplest and the most reliable.

Therefore, this patch introduces a kernel config option which allows
selecting fine-grained kernel config options for tweaking kernel's
behavior. Each fine-grained kernel config option will be added by future
patches. For ease of management, grouping kernel config options for
allowing e.g. syzkaller to select all fine-grained kernel config options
which e.g. syzkaller wants would be added by future patches.

[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CACT4Y+a6KExbggs4mg8pvoD554PcDqQNW4sM15X-tc=YONCzYw@mail.gmail.com

Signed-off-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
---
 lib/Kconfig.debug | 11 +++++++++++
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+)

Changes since v2 ( https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200307135822.3894-1-penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp ):
  Reduce the role of this kernel config option from "enable everything
  which would be useful for fuzz testing" to "simply serve as a gate for
  hiding individual kernel config option", for we should use individual
  kernel config option for tweaking individual kernel behavior.

Changes since v1 ( https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20191216095955.9886-1-penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp ):
  Drop users of this kernel config option.
  Update patch description.

diff --git a/lib/Kconfig.debug b/lib/Kconfig.debug
index 50c1f5f08e6f..a7c3ebc21428 100644
--- a/lib/Kconfig.debug
+++ b/lib/Kconfig.debug
@@ -2223,4 +2223,15 @@ config HYPERV_TESTING
 
 endmenu # "Kernel Testing and Coverage"
 
+menuconfig TWEAK_KERNEL_BEHAVIOR
+	bool "Tweak kernel behavior"
+	help
+	  Saying Y here allows modifying kernel behavior via kernel
+	  config options which will become visible by selecting this
+	  config option.
+
+if TWEAK_KERNEL_BEHAVIOR
+
+endif # TWEAK_KERNEL_BEHAVIOR
+
 endmenu # Kernel hacking
-- 
2.18.2

