From: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
To: glider@google.com
Cc: quic_jiangenj@quicinc.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
kasan-dev@googlegroups.com, Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
Aleksandr Nogikh <nogikh@google.com>,
Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@gmail.com>,
Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>,
Marco Elver <elver@google.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Subject: [PATCH v4 08/10] kcov: add ioctl(KCOV_RESET_TRACE)
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2025 13:51:37 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20250731115139.3035888-9-glider@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20250731115139.3035888-1-glider@google.com>
Provide a mechanism to reset the coverage for the current task
without writing directly to the coverage buffer.
This is slower, but allows the fuzzers to map the coverage buffer
as read-only, making it harder to corrupt.
Signed-off-by: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
---
v4:
- Add Reviewed-by: Dmitry Vyukov
v2:
- Update code to match the new description of struct kcov_state
Change-Id: I8f9e6c179d93ccbfe0296b14764e88fa837cfffe
---
Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
include/uapi/linux/kcov.h | 1 +
kernel/kcov.c | 15 +++++++++++++++
3 files changed, 42 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
index 6446887cd1c92..e215c0651e16d 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/kcov.rst
@@ -470,3 +470,29 @@ local tasks spawned by the process and the global task that handles USB bus #1:
perror("close"), exit(1);
return 0;
}
+
+
+Resetting coverage with an KCOV_RESET_TRACE
+-------------------------------------------
+
+The ``KCOV_RESET_TRACE`` ioctl provides a mechanism to clear collected coverage
+data for the current task. It resets the program counter (PC) trace and, if
+``KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE`` mode is active, also zeroes the associated bitmap.
+
+The primary use case for this ioctl is to enhance safety during fuzzing.
+Normally, a user could map the kcov buffer with ``PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE`` and
+reset the trace from the user-space program. However, when fuzzing system calls,
+the kernel itself might inadvertently write to this shared buffer, corrupting
+the coverage data.
+
+To prevent this, a fuzzer can map the buffer with ``PROT_READ`` and use
+``ioctl(fd, KCOV_RESET_TRACE, 0)`` to safely clear the buffer from the kernel
+side before each fuzzing iteration.
+
+Note that:
+
+* This ioctl is safer but slower than directly writing to the shared memory
+ buffer due to the overhead of a system call.
+* ``KCOV_RESET_TRACE`` is itself a system call, and its execution will be traced
+ by kcov. Consequently, immediately after the ioctl returns, cover[0] will be
+ greater than 0.
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h b/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
index e743ee011eeca..8ab77cc3afa76 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/kcov.h
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ struct kcov_remote_arg {
#define KCOV_DISABLE _IO('c', 101)
#define KCOV_REMOTE_ENABLE _IOW('c', 102, struct kcov_remote_arg)
#define KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE _IOW('c', 103, unsigned long)
+#define KCOV_RESET_TRACE _IO('c', 104)
enum {
/*
diff --git a/kernel/kcov.c b/kernel/kcov.c
index a92c848d17bce..82ed4c6150c54 100644
--- a/kernel/kcov.c
+++ b/kernel/kcov.c
@@ -740,6 +740,21 @@ static int kcov_ioctl_locked(struct kcov *kcov, unsigned int cmd,
return 0;
case KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE:
return kcov_handle_unique_enable(kcov, arg);
+ case KCOV_RESET_TRACE:
+ unused = arg;
+ if (unused != 0 || current->kcov != kcov)
+ return -EINVAL;
+ t = current;
+ if (WARN_ON(kcov->t != t))
+ return -EINVAL;
+ mode = kcov->mode;
+ if (mode < KCOV_MODE_TRACE_PC)
+ return -EINVAL;
+ if (kcov->state.bitmap)
+ bitmap_zero(kcov->state.bitmap,
+ kcov->state.bitmap_size);
+ WRITE_ONCE(kcov->state.trace[0], 0);
+ return 0;
case KCOV_DISABLE:
/* Disable coverage for the current task. */
unused = arg;
--
2.50.1.552.g942d659e1b-goog
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-07-31 11:52 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-07-31 11:51 [PATCH v4 00/10] Coverage deduplication for KCOV Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 01/10] x86: kcov: disable instrumentation of arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 02/10] kcov: elaborate on using the shared buffer Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 03/10] kcov: factor out struct kcov_state Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 04/10] mm/kasan: define __asan_before_dynamic_init, __asan_after_dynamic_init Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 05/10] kcov: x86: introduce CONFIG_KCOV_UNIQUE Alexander Potapenko
2025-08-26 8:14 ` Joey Jiao
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 06/10] kcov: add trace and trace_size to struct kcov_state Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 07/10] kcov: add ioctl(KCOV_UNIQUE_ENABLE) Alexander Potapenko
2025-07-31 11:51 ` Alexander Potapenko [this message]
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 09/10] kcov: selftests: add kcov_test Alexander Potapenko
2025-08-01 4:10 ` Dmitry Vyukov
2025-07-31 11:51 ` [PATCH v4 10/10] kcov: use enum kcov_mode in kcov_mode_enabled() Alexander Potapenko
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