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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst | 26 |
1 files changed, 25 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst b/Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst index 00d07c7eefd4..9be6de402cb9 100644 --- a/Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst +++ b/Documentation/core-api/printk-formats.rst @@ -79,7 +79,19 @@ Pointers printed without a specifier extension (i.e unadorned %p) are hashed to prevent leaking information about the kernel memory layout. This has the added benefit of providing a unique identifier. On 64-bit machines the first 32 bits are zeroed. The kernel will print ``(ptrval)`` until it -gathers enough entropy. If you *really* want the address see %px below. +gathers enough entropy. + +When possible, use specialised modifiers such as %pS or %pB (described below) +to avoid the need of providing an unhashed address that has to be interpreted +post-hoc. If not possible, and the aim of printing the address is to provide +more information for debugging, use %p and boot the kernel with the +``no_hash_pointers`` parameter during debugging, which will print all %p +addresses unmodified. If you *really* always want the unmodified address, see +%px below. + +If (and only if) you are printing addresses as a content of a virtual file in +e.g. procfs or sysfs (using e.g. seq_printf(), not printk()) read by a +userspace process, use the %pK modifier described below instead of %p or %px. Error Pointers -------------- @@ -139,6 +151,11 @@ For printing kernel pointers which should be hidden from unprivileged users. The behaviour of %pK depends on the kptr_restrict sysctl - see Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst for more details. +This modifier is *only* intended when producing content of a file read by +userspace from e.g. procfs or sysfs, not for dmesg. Please refer to the +section about %p above for discussion about how to manage hashing pointers +in printk(). + Unmodified Addresses -------------------- @@ -153,6 +170,13 @@ equivalent to %lx (or %lu). %px is preferred because it is more uniquely grep'able. If in the future we need to modify the way the kernel handles printing pointers we will be better equipped to find the call sites. +Before using %px, consider if using %p is sufficient together with enabling the +``no_hash_pointers`` kernel parameter during debugging sessions (see the %p +description above). One valid scenario for %px might be printing information +immediately before a panic, which prevents any sensitive information to be +exploited anyway, and with %px there would be no need to reproduce the panic +with no_hash_pointers. + Pointer Differences ------------------- |