Let's remove /dev/kmem, which is unused and obsolete. Description from patch #1: " Exploring /dev/kmem and /dev/mem in the context of memory hot(un)plug and memory ballooning, I started questioning the existance of /dev/kmem. Comparing it with the /proc/kcore implementation, it does not seem to be able to deal with things like a) Pages unmapped from the direct mapping (e.g., to be used by secretmem) -> kern_addr_valid(). virt_addr_valid() is not sufficient. b) Special cases like gart aperture memory that is not to be touched -> mem_pfn_is_ram() Unless I am missing something, it's at least broken in some cases and might fault/crash the machine. Looks like its existance has been questioned before in 2005 and 2010 [1], after ~11 additional years, it might make sense to revive the discussion. CONFIG_DEVKMEM is only enabled in a single defconfig (on purpose or by mistake?). All distributions disable it: in Ubuntu it has been disabled for more than 10 years, in Debian since 2.6.31, in Fedora at least starting with FC3, in RHEL starting with RHEL4, in SUSE starting from 15sp2, and OpenSUSE has it disabled as well. 1) /dev/kmem was popular for rootkits [2] before it got disabled basically everywhere. Ubuntu documents [3] "There is no modern user of /dev/kmem any more beyond attackers using it to load kernel rootkits.". RHEL documents in a BZ [5] "it served no practical purpose other than to serve as a potential security problem or to enable binary module drivers to access structures/functions they shouldn't be touching" 2) /proc/kcore is a decent interface to have a controlled way to read kernel memory for debugging puposes. (will need some extensions to deal with memory offlining/unplug, memory ballooning, and poisoned pages, though) 3) It might be useful for corner case debugging [1]. KDB/KGDB might be a better fit, especially, to write random memory; harder to shoot yourself into the foot. 4) "Kernel Memory Editor" [4] hasn't seen any updates since 2000 and seems to be incompatible with 64bit [1]. For educational purposes, /proc/kcore might be used to monitor value updates -- or older kernels can be used. 5) It's broken on arm64, and therefore, completely disabled there. Looks like it's essentially unused and has been replaced by better suited interfaces for individual tasks (/proc/kcore, KDB/KGDB). Let's just remove it. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/147901/ [2] https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10505 [3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features#A.2Fdev.2Fkmem_disabled [4] https://sourceforge.net/projects/kme/ [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=154796 " RFC -> v1: - "drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good" -- Add more details to patch description regarding distributions - "mm/vmalloc: remove vwrite()" -- Also remove the nommu variant - Compile-tested on more archs/configs David Hildenbrand (3): drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good mm: remove xlate_dev_kmem_ptr() mm/vmalloc: remove vwrite() Documentation/admin-guide/devices.txt | 2 +- arch/alpha/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/arm/configs/dove_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/configs/magician_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/configs/moxart_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/configs/mps2_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/configs/mvebu_v5_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/configs/xcep_defconfig | 1 - arch/arm/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/h8300/configs/edosk2674_defconfig | 1 - arch/h8300/configs/h8300h-sim_defconfig | 1 - arch/h8300/configs/h8s-sim_defconfig | 1 - arch/hexagon/configs/comet_defconfig | 1 - arch/hexagon/include/asm/io.h | 1 - arch/ia64/include/asm/io.h | 1 - arch/ia64/include/asm/uaccess.h | 18 -- arch/m68k/configs/amcore_defconfig | 1 - arch/m68k/include/asm/io_mm.h | 5 - arch/mips/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/openrisc/configs/or1ksim_defconfig | 1 - arch/parisc/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/powerpc/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/s390/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/sh/configs/edosk7705_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/configs/se7206_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/configs/sh2007_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/configs/sh7724_generic_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/configs/sh7770_generic_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/configs/sh7785lcr_32bit_defconfig | 1 - arch/sh/include/asm/io.h | 5 - arch/sparc/configs/sparc64_defconfig | 1 - arch/sparc/include/asm/io_64.h | 5 - arch/xtensa/configs/xip_kc705_defconfig | 1 - drivers/char/Kconfig | 10 - drivers/char/mem.c | 231 ---------------------- include/asm-generic/io.h | 11 -- include/linux/fs.h | 2 +- include/linux/vmalloc.h | 3 +- kernel/configs/android-base.config | 1 - mm/ksm.c | 2 +- mm/nommu.c | 10 - mm/vmalloc.c | 118 +---------- 42 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 469 deletions(-) base-commit: 0d02ec6b3136c73c09e7859f0d0e4e2c4c07b49b -- 2.29.2
