The patch titled Subject: sysctl.c: fix underflow value setting risk in vm_table has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is sysctlc-fix-underflow-value-setting-risk-in-vm_table.patch This patch should soon appear at https://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmots/broken-out/sysctlc-fix-underflow-value-setting-risk-in-vm_table.patch and later at https://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/sysctlc-fix-underflow-value-setting-risk-in-vm_table.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/process/submit-checklist.rst when testing your code *** The -mm tree is included into linux-next and is updated there every 3-4 working days ------------------------------------------------------ From: Lin Feng <linf@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: sysctl.c: fix underflow value setting risk in vm_table Apart from subsystem specific .proc_handler handler, all ctl_tables with extra1 and extra2 members set should use proc_dointvec_minmax instead of proc_dointvec, or the limit set in extra* never work and potentially echo underflow values(negative numbers) is likely make system unstable. Especially vfs_cache_pressure and zone_reclaim_mode, -1 is apparently not a valid value, but we can set to them. And then kernel may crash. # echo -1 > /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20201223105535.2875-1-linf@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Lin Feng <linf@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/sysctl.c | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) --- a/kernel/sysctl.c~sysctlc-fix-underflow-value-setting-risk-in-vm_table +++ a/kernel/sysctl.c @@ -2962,7 +2962,7 @@ static struct ctl_table vm_table[] = { .data = &block_dump, .maxlen = sizeof(block_dump), .mode = 0644, - .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, + .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax, .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, }, { @@ -2970,7 +2970,7 @@ static struct ctl_table vm_table[] = { .data = &sysctl_vfs_cache_pressure, .maxlen = sizeof(sysctl_vfs_cache_pressure), .mode = 0644, - .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, + .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax, .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, }, #if defined(HAVE_ARCH_PICK_MMAP_LAYOUT) || \ @@ -2980,7 +2980,7 @@ static struct ctl_table vm_table[] = { .data = &sysctl_legacy_va_layout, .maxlen = sizeof(sysctl_legacy_va_layout), .mode = 0644, - .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, + .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax, .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, }, #endif @@ -2990,7 +2990,7 @@ static struct ctl_table vm_table[] = { .data = &node_reclaim_mode, .maxlen = sizeof(node_reclaim_mode), .mode = 0644, - .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, + .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax, .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, }, { _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from linf@xxxxxxxxxx are sysctlc-fix-underflow-value-setting-risk-in-vm_table.patch