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From: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>,
	Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@virtuozzo.com>,
	Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
	kasan-dev@googlegroups.com, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 02/11] kasan: docs: update overview section
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:24:25 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1486fba8514de3d7db2f47df2192db59228b0a7b.1615559068.git.andreyknvl@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <c2bbb56eaea80ad484f0ee85bb71959a3a63f1d7.1615559068.git.andreyknvl@google.com>

Update the "Overview" section in KASAN documentation:

- Outline main use cases for each mode.
- Mention that HW_TAGS mode need compiler support too.
- Move the part about SLUB/SLAB support from "Usage" to "Overview".
- Punctuation, readability, and other minor clean-ups.

Signed-off-by: Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@google.com>

---

Changes v1->v2:
- Mention GCC support for HW_TAGS.
---
 Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst | 27 +++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
index b3b2c517db55..2f2697b290d5 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/kasan.rst
@@ -11,17 +11,31 @@ designed to find out-of-bound and use-after-free bugs. KASAN has three modes:
 2. software tag-based KASAN (similar to userspace HWASan),
 3. hardware tag-based KASAN (based on hardware memory tagging).
 
-Software KASAN modes (1 and 2) use compile-time instrumentation to insert
-validity checks before every memory access, and therefore require a compiler
+Generic KASAN is mainly used for debugging due to a large memory overhead.
+Software tag-based KASAN can be used for dogfood testing as it has a lower
+memory overhead that allows using it with real workloads. Hardware tag-based
+KASAN comes with low memory and performance overheads and, therefore, can be
+used in production. Either as an in-field memory bug detector or as a security
+mitigation.
+
+Software KASAN modes (#1 and #2) use compile-time instrumentation to insert
+validity checks before every memory access and, therefore, require a compiler
 version that supports that.
 
-Generic KASAN is supported in both GCC and Clang. With GCC it requires version
+Generic KASAN is supported in GCC and Clang. With GCC, it requires version
 8.3.0 or later. Any supported Clang version is compatible, but detection of
 out-of-bounds accesses for global variables is only supported since Clang 11.
 
-Tag-based KASAN is only supported in Clang.
+Software tag-based KASAN mode is only supported in Clang.
 
-Currently generic KASAN is supported for the x86_64, arm, arm64, xtensa, s390
+The hardware KASAN mode (#3) relies on hardware to perform the checks but
+still requires a compiler version that supports memory tagging instructions.
+This mode is supported in GCC 10+ and Clang 11+.
+
+Both software KASAN modes work with SLUB and SLAB memory allocators,
+while the hardware tag-based KASAN currently only supports SLUB.
+
+Currently, generic KASAN is supported for the x86_64, arm, arm64, xtensa, s390,
 and riscv architectures, and tag-based KASAN modes are supported only for arm64.
 
 Usage
@@ -39,9 +53,6 @@ For software modes, you also need to choose between CONFIG_KASAN_OUTLINE and
 CONFIG_KASAN_INLINE. Outline and inline are compiler instrumentation types.
 The former produces smaller binary while the latter is 1.1 - 2 times faster.
 
-Both software KASAN modes work with both SLUB and SLAB memory allocators,
-while the hardware tag-based KASAN currently only support SLUB.
-
 For better error reports that include stack traces, enable CONFIG_STACKTRACE.
 
 To augment reports with last allocation and freeing stack of the physical page,
-- 
2.31.0.rc2.261.g7f71774620-goog


  reply	other threads:[~2021-03-12 14:25 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-03-12 14:24 [PATCH v2 01/11] kasan: docs: clean up sections Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24 ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24 ` Andrey Konovalov [this message]
2021-03-12 14:24   ` [PATCH v2 02/11] kasan: docs: update overview section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:07   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 03/11] kasan: docs: update usage section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:07   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 04/11] kasan: docs: update error reports section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:08   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 05/11] kasan: docs: update boot parameters section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:08   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 06/11] kasan: docs: update GENERIC implementation details section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:08   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 07/11] kasan: docs: update SW_TAGS " Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:09   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 08/11] kasan: docs: update HW_TAGS " Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:09   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 09/11] kasan: docs: update shadow memory section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:09   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 10/11] kasan: docs: update ignoring accesses section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:10   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 14:24 ` [PATCH v2 11/11] kasan: docs: update tests section Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 14:24   ` Andrey Konovalov
2021-03-12 15:11   ` Marco Elver
2021-03-12 15:06 ` [PATCH v2 01/11] kasan: docs: clean up sections Marco Elver

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