linux/Documentation/sysctl
David Rientjes 7cd2b0a34a mm, pcp: allow restoring percpu_pagelist_fraction default
Oleg reports a division by zero error on zero-length write() to the
percpu_pagelist_fraction sysctl:

    divide error: 0000 [#1] SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC
    CPU: 1 PID: 9142 Comm: badarea_io Not tainted 3.15.0-rc2-vm-nfs+ #19
    Hardware name: Bochs Bochs, BIOS Bochs 01/01/2011
    task: ffff8800d5aeb6e0 ti: ffff8800d87a2000 task.ti: ffff8800d87a2000
    RIP: 0010: percpu_pagelist_fraction_sysctl_handler+0x84/0x120
    RSP: 0018:ffff8800d87a3e78  EFLAGS: 00010246
    RAX: 0000000000000f89 RBX: ffff88011f7fd000 RCX: 0000000000000000
    RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000001 RDI: 0000000000000010
    RBP: ffff8800d87a3e98 R08: ffffffff81d002c8 R09: ffff8800d87a3f50
    R10: 000000000000000b R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000060
    R13: ffffffff81c3c3e0 R14: ffffffff81cfddf8 R15: ffff8801193b0800
    FS:  00007f614f1e9740(0000) GS:ffff88011f440000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
    CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 000000008005003b
    CR2: 00007f614f1fa000 CR3: 00000000d9291000 CR4: 00000000000006e0
    Call Trace:
      proc_sys_call_handler+0xb3/0xc0
      proc_sys_write+0x14/0x20
      vfs_write+0xba/0x1e0
      SyS_write+0x46/0xb0
      tracesys+0xe1/0xe6

However, if the percpu_pagelist_fraction sysctl is set by the user, it
is also impossible to restore it to the kernel default since the user
cannot write 0 to the sysctl.

This patch allows the user to write 0 to restore the default behavior.
It still requires a fraction equal to or larger than 8, however, as
stated by the documentation for sanity.  If a value in the range [1, 7]
is written, the sysctl will return EINVAL.

This successfully solves the divide by zero issue at the same time.

Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Reported-by: Oleg Drokin <green@linuxhacker.ru>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2014-06-23 16:47:43 -07:00
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
abi.txt
fs.txt Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
kernel.txt sysctl: allow for strict write position handling 2014-06-06 16:08:13 -07:00
net.txt qdisc: allow setting default queuing discipline 2013-08-31 00:32:32 -04:00
README
sunrpc.txt
vm.txt mm, pcp: allow restoring percpu_pagelist_fraction default 2014-06-23 16:47:43 -07:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)