Re: [PATCH 0/8] mm/slab: Support selecting slab hardening features at boot

[Harry Yoo <harry@kernel.org>]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 11:27:37PM +0800, Chris Down wrote:
> Hi Harry,
> 
> Harry Yoo writes:
> > If we end up supporting boot-time parameters for hardening,
> > I think it should be all enabled (or disabled) by:
> > 
> >  slab_hardening=none|light|full
> >  # please feel free to suggest bertter names
> > 
> > none: "Turn of all of them to maximize performance"
> > 
> > light: "I'm willying to sacrifice _some_ memory and CPU for security"
> > 
> > full: "I'm willying to sacrifice more overhead for security
> > 
> > IMHO more fine-grained knob for each feature doesn't make much sense.
> 
> I think if we did the 4 knobs that is a good idea. Given now it's two, I
> think it seems reasonable to keep it as two separate knobs unless you
> object? Otherwise I think given it will only cover the latter two, it
> should be something like kmalloc_isolation= instead. Let me know what you
> think.

There has been constant, steady efforts to add more and more hardening
features over the last decade. So I'd say slab_hardening= is more
future proof :-)

Kees or Marco might have more insights on this.

-- 
Cheers,
Harry / Hyeonggon