Re: [BUG] tracing: Too many tries to read user space
From: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Date: 2026-07-10 12:33:57
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lkml
Subsystem:
the rest, tracing · Maintainers:
Linus Torvalds, Steven Rostedt, Masami Hiramatsu
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:22:31 +0900 Masami Hiramatsu (Google) [off-list ref] wrote:
Hm, in my view, this warning indicates that the circuit breaker has triggered correctly, so that is not a bug. Under the heavy memory pressure and low-memory situation, the page can be reclaimed soon after it is copied.
So you are saying that every time the copy_from_user() is executed, the page is reclaimed? And this causes a schedule? Now, I did have a version that used sched_switch and only incremented the counter when a non-kernel thread was scheduled in. Then the test would check if the counter increased by 2 or more. As an increase by 1 meant that only kernel threads scheduled in which would not corrupt the buffer. The 1 increment was the current task scheduling back. This is based on that work (I'm glad I save old versions in my git tree :-) Funny, the comments were from the original change I did back in August of 2025, which mentions kernel threads scheduling in to handle the fault. I also kept this around in case it was needed. Looks like it may be needed. -- Steve
diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace.c b/kernel/trace/trace.c
index 18710c190c92..19354fe2fca1 100644
--- a/kernel/trace/trace.c
+++ b/kernel/trace/trace.c@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ #include <linux/io.h> /* vmap_page_range() */ #include <linux/fs_context.h> +#include <trace/events/sched.h> + #include <asm/setup.h> /* COMMAND_LINE_SIZE */ #include "trace.h"
@@ -5984,6 +5986,32 @@ struct trace_user_buf { static DEFINE_MUTEX(trace_user_buffer_mutex); static struct trace_user_buf_info *trace_user_buffer; +static DEFINE_PER_CPU(unsigned long, sched_switch_cnt); + +/* + * The per CPU buffer trace_user_buffer is written to optimstically. + * The counter sched_switch_cnt is taken, preemption is enabled, + * the copying of the user space memory is placed into the trace_user_buffer, + * Preeption is re-enabled and the count is read again. If the count is greater + * than one from its previous reading, it means that another user space + * task scheduled in and the buffer is unreliable for use. + */ +static void +probe_sched_switch(void *ignore, bool preempt, + struct task_struct *prev, struct task_struct *next, + unsigned int prev_state) +{ + /* + * The buffer can only be corrupted by another user space task. + * Ignore kernel tasks that may be scheduled in order to process + * the faulting memory. + */ + if (!is_user_task(next)) + return; + + this_cpu_inc(sched_switch_cnt); +} + /** * trace_user_fault_destroy - free up allocated memory of a trace user buffer * @tinfo: The descriptor to free up
@@ -6003,6 +6031,8 @@ void trace_user_fault_destroy(struct trace_user_buf_info *tinfo) kfree(buf); } free_percpu(tinfo->tbuf); + + unregister_trace_sched_switch(probe_sched_switch, NULL); } static int user_fault_buffer_enable(struct trace_user_buf_info *tinfo, size_t size)
@@ -6053,11 +6083,17 @@ static int user_buffer_init(struct trace_user_buf_info **tinfo, size_t size) lockdep_assert_held(&trace_user_buffer_mutex); + ret = register_trace_sched_switch(probe_sched_switch, NULL); + if (ret < 0) + return ret; + if (!*tinfo) { alloc = true; *tinfo = kzalloc_obj(**tinfo); - if (!*tinfo) + if (!*tinfo) { + unregister_trace_sched_switch(probe_sched_switch, NULL); return -ENOMEM; + } } ret = user_fault_buffer_enable(*tinfo, size);
@@ -6241,7 +6277,7 @@ char *trace_user_fault_read(struct trace_user_buf_info *tinfo, return NULL; /* Read the current CPU context switch counter */ - cnt = nr_context_switches_cpu(cpu); + cnt = this_cpu_read(sched_switch_cnt); /* * Preemption is going to be enabled, but this task must
@@ -6272,12 +6308,19 @@ char *trace_user_fault_read(struct trace_user_buf_info *tinfo, return NULL; /* - * Preemption is disabled again, now check the per CPU context - * switch counter. If it doesn't match, then another user space - * process may have schedule in and corrupted our buffer. In that - * case the copying must be retried. + * Preemption is disabled again, now check the sched_switch_cnt. + * If it increased by two or more, then another user space process + * may have schedule in and corrupted our buffer. In that case + * the copying must be retried. + * + * Note, if this task was scheduled out and only kernel threads + * were scheduled in (maybe to process the fault), then the + * counter would increment again when this task scheduled in. + * If this task scheduled out and another user task scheduled + * in, this task would still need to be scheduled back in and + * the counter would increment by at least two. */ - } while (nr_context_switches_cpu(cpu) != cnt); + } while (this_cpu_read(sched_switch_cnt) > cnt + 1); return buffer; }