linux/Documentation
Dmitry Vyukov 5c9a8750a6 kernel: add kcov code coverage
kcov provides code coverage collection for coverage-guided fuzzing
(randomized testing).  Coverage-guided fuzzing is a testing technique
that uses coverage feedback to determine new interesting inputs to a
system.  A notable user-space example is AFL
(http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/).  However, this technique is not
widely used for kernel testing due to missing compiler and kernel
support.

kcov does not aim to collect as much coverage as possible.  It aims to
collect more or less stable coverage that is function of syscall inputs.
To achieve this goal it does not collect coverage in soft/hard
interrupts and instrumentation of some inherently non-deterministic or
non-interesting parts of kernel is disbled (e.g.  scheduler, locking).

Currently there is a single coverage collection mode (tracing), but the
API anticipates additional collection modes.  Initially I also
implemented a second mode which exposes coverage in a fixed-size hash
table of counters (what Quentin used in his original patch).  I've
dropped the second mode for simplicity.

This patch adds the necessary support on kernel side.  The complimentary
compiler support was added in gcc revision 231296.

We've used this support to build syzkaller system call fuzzer, which has
found 90 kernel bugs in just 2 months:

  https://github.com/google/syzkaller/wiki/Found-Bugs

We've also found 30+ bugs in our internal systems with syzkaller.
Another (yet unexplored) direction where kcov coverage would greatly
help is more traditional "blob mutation".  For example, mounting a
random blob as a filesystem, or receiving a random blob over wire.

Why not gcov.  Typical fuzzing loop looks as follows: (1) reset
coverage, (2) execute a bit of code, (3) collect coverage, repeat.  A
typical coverage can be just a dozen of basic blocks (e.g.  an invalid
input).  In such context gcov becomes prohibitively expensive as
reset/collect coverage steps depend on total number of basic
blocks/edges in program (in case of kernel it is about 2M).  Cost of
kcov depends only on number of executed basic blocks/edges.  On top of
that, kernel requires per-thread coverage because there are always
background threads and unrelated processes that also produce coverage.
With inlined gcov instrumentation per-thread coverage is not possible.

kcov exposes kernel PCs and control flow to user-space which is
insecure.  But debugfs should not be mapped as user accessible.

Based on a patch by Quentin Casasnovas.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: make task_struct.kcov_mode have type `enum kcov_mode']
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: unbreak allmodconfig]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: follow x86 Makefile layout standards]
Signed-off-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: syzkaller <syzkaller@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Tavis Ormandy <taviso@google.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Cc: Quentin Casasnovas <quentin.casasnovas@oracle.com>
Cc: Kostya Serebryany <kcc@google.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@google.com>
Cc: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
Cc: Sasha Levin <sasha.levin@oracle.com>
Cc: David Drysdale <drysdale@google.com>
Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>
Cc: Andrey Ryabinin <ryabinin.a.a@gmail.com>
Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill@shutemov.name>
Cc: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
..
ABI Merge tag 'for-f2fs-4.6' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jaegeuk/f2fs 2016-03-21 11:03:02 -07:00
accounting
acpi
aoe
arm ARM: SoC 64-bit changes for v4.6 2016-03-20 15:08:45 -07:00
arm64
auxdisplay
backlight
blackfin
block
blockdev
bus-devices
cdrom
cgroup-v1 Merge branch 'for-4.6' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/cgroup 2016-03-18 20:25:49 -07:00
cma
connector
console
cpu-freq
cpuidle
cris
crypto
development-process
device-mapper
devicetree MMC core: 2016-03-21 14:35:52 -07:00
dmaengine
DocBook Merge branch 'drm-next' of git://people.freedesktop.org/~airlied/linux 2016-03-21 13:48:00 -07:00
driver-model Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/linux-arm 2016-03-19 16:31:54 -07:00
dvb
early-userspace
EDID
extcon
fault-injection
fb
features arm64 updates for 4.6: 2016-03-17 20:03:47 -07:00
filesystems fat: add config option to set UTF-8 mount option by default 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
firmware_class
fmc
fpga
frv
gpio
hid
hwmon
i2c
ia64
ide
iio
infiniband
input
ioctl
isdn
ja_JP
kbuild
kdump
ko_KR
laptops
leds
locking
m68k
memory-devices
metag
mic Char/Misc patches for 4.6-rc1 2016-03-17 13:47:50 -07:00
mips
misc-devices
mmc
mn10300
mtd
namespaces
netlabel
networking
nfc
nios2
nvdimm
nvmem
parisc
PCI
pcmcia
phy
platform
power
powerpc
pps
prctl
pti
ptp Another relatively boring cycle for the docs tree: typo fixes, translation 2016-03-17 12:09:35 -07:00
rapidio rapidio: add mport char device driver 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
RCU
s390
scheduler
scsi
security
serial
sh
sound
spi
sysctl Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2016-03-18 19:26:54 -07:00
target
thermal
timers Another relatively boring cycle for the docs tree: typo fixes, translation 2016-03-17 12:09:35 -07:00
tpm
trace
usb
vDSO
video4linux
virtual One of the largest releases for KVM... Hardly any generic improvement, 2016-03-16 09:55:35 -07:00
vm mm: thp: set THP defrag by default to madvise and add a stall-free defrag option 2016-03-17 15:09:34 -07:00
w1
watchdog Merge git://www.linux-watchdog.org/linux-watchdog 2016-03-19 19:35:51 -07:00
wimax
x86 Merge branch 'efi-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2016-03-20 18:58:18 -07:00
xtensa
zh_CN
00-INDEX
adding-syscalls.txt
applying-patches.txt
assoc_array.txt
atomic_ops.txt
bad_memory.txt
basic_profiling.txt
bcache.txt
binfmt_misc.txt
braille-console.txt
bt8xxgpio.txt
btmrvl.txt
BUG-HUNTING
bus-virt-phys-mapping.txt
cachetlb.txt
cgroup-v2.txt Merge branch 'for-4.6-ns' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/cgroup 2016-03-21 10:05:13 -07:00
Changes
circular-buffers.txt
clk.txt
coccinelle.txt
CodeOfConflict
CodingStyle
cpu-hotplug.txt
cpu-load.txt
cputopology.txt
crc32.txt
dcdbas.txt
debugging-modules.txt
debugging-via-ohci1394.txt
dell_rbu.txt
devices.txt
digsig.txt
DMA-API-HOWTO.txt
DMA-API.txt
DMA-attributes.txt
dma-buf-sharing.txt
DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
dontdiff
dynamic-debug-howto.txt
edac.txt
efi-stub.txt
eisa.txt
email-clients.txt
flexible-arrays.txt
futex-requeue-pi.txt
gcov.txt
gdb-kernel-debugging.txt
highuid.txt
HOWTO
hsi.txt
hw_random.txt
hwspinlock.txt
init.txt
initrd.txt
intel_txt.txt
Intel-IOMMU.txt
io_ordering.txt
io-mapping.txt
iostats.txt
IPMI.txt
IRQ-affinity.txt
IRQ-domain.txt
IRQ.txt
irqflags-tracing.txt
isapnp.txt
java.txt
kasan.txt
kcov.txt kernel: add kcov code coverage 2016-03-22 15:36:02 -07:00
kernel-doc-nano-HOWTO.txt
kernel-docs.txt
kernel-parameters.txt Merge branch 'mm-pkeys-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2016-03-20 19:08:56 -07:00
kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
kmemcheck.txt
kmemleak.txt
kobject.txt
kprobes.txt
kref.txt
kselftest.txt
ldm.txt
local_ops.txt
lockup-watchdogs.txt
logo.gif
logo.txt
lzo.txt
magic-number.txt
mailbox.txt
Makefile
ManagementStyle
md-cluster.txt
md.txt
memory-barriers.txt
memory-hotplug.txt memory-hotplug: add automatic onlining policy for the newly added memory 2016-03-15 16:55:16 -07:00
men-chameleon-bus.txt
module-signing.txt
mono.txt
nommu-mmap.txt
ntb.txt
numastat.txt
oops-tracing.txt
padata.txt
parport-lowlevel.txt
parport.txt
percpu-rw-semaphore.txt
phy.txt
pi-futex.txt
pinctrl.txt
pnp.txt
preempt-locking.txt
printk-formats.txt mm, printk: introduce new format string for flags 2016-03-15 16:55:16 -07:00
pwm.txt
ramoops.txt
rbtree.txt
remoteproc.txt
rfkill.txt
robust-futex-ABI.txt
robust-futexes.txt
rpmsg.txt
rtc.txt
SAK.txt
SecurityBugs
serial-console.txt
sgi-ioc4.txt
SM501.txt
smsc_ece1099.txt
sparse.txt
stable_api_nonsense.txt
stable_kernel_rules.txt
static-keys.txt
SubmitChecklist
SubmittingDrivers
SubmittingPatches
svga.txt
sysfs-rules.txt
sysrq.txt
this_cpu_ops.txt
ubsan.txt
unaligned-memory-access.txt
unicode.txt
unshare.txt
vfio.txt
VGA-softcursor.txt
vgaarbiter.txt
video-output.txt
vme_api.txt
volatile-considered-harmful.txt
workqueue.txt
xillybus.txt
xz.txt
zorro.txt