Re: [PATCH 0/3] KASAN: HW_TAGS: Disable tagging for stack and page-tables

David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-03-26T13:40:25Z

On 3/23/26 16:06, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
> On 20/03/2026 8:53 am, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
>> On 3/19/26 12:49, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
>>> Stacks and page tables are always accessed with the match‑all tag,
>>> so assigning a new random tag every time at allocation and setting
>>> invalid tag at deallocation time, just adds overhead without improving
>>> the detection.
>>>
>>> With __GFP_SKIP_KASAN the page keeps its poison tag and KASAN_TAG_KERNEL
>>> (match-all tag) is stored in the page flags while keeping the poison tag
>>> in the hardware. The benefit of it is that 256 tag setting instruction
>>> per 4 kB page aren't needed at allocation and deallocation time.
>>>
>>> Thus match‑all pointers still work, while non‑match tags (other than
>>> poison tag) still fault.
>>>
>>> __GFP_SKIP_KASAN only skips for KASAN_HW_TAGS mode, so coverage is
>>> unchanged.
>>>
>>> Benchmark:
>>> The benchmark has two modes. In thread mode, the child process forks
>>> and creates N threads. In pgtable mode, the parent maps and faults a
>>> specified memory size and then forks repeatedly with children exiting
>>> immediately.
>>>
>>> Thread benchmark:
>>> 2000 iterations, 2000 threads: 2.575 s → 2.229 s (~13.4% faster)
>>>
>>> The pgtable samples:
>>> - 2048 MB, 2000 iters 19.08 s → 17.62 s (~7.6% faster)
>>
>> As discussed offline, I think we should look into finding a better name
>> for __GFP_SKIP_KASAN now that we are using it more broadly. It's confusing.
> Agreed that its confusing and the name doesn't show its under-the-hood usage.
>

And I think I finally realized that __GFP_SKIP_KASAN is used for two
independent use cases, something that really must be sorted out.

>>
>> The semantics are:
>> * Only applies to HW KASAN right now. Otherwise it's ignored. So it
>> doesn't give any guarantees.
>> * Will currently leave memory tagged with some tag (poisoned), but
>> tag checks will be disabled by using the match-all pointer.
>>
>> After pondering about that for a while, I realized that today, all
>> memory is tagged by default, and __GFP_SKIP_KASAN is our mechanism to
>> request memory that will not be tag-checked (close to if it would be not
>> tagged).
> KASAN uses the poisoning and un-poisoning terminologies. It depends upon
> the type of KASAN enabled that how poisoning/unpoisoning is done.

And that's an implementation detail. A random memory allocation
shouldn't have to know what KASAN or POISONING is. :)

>
>>
>> Is there a real difference to getting untagged memory, if supported by
>> the architecture.
>>
>> So I was wondering if
>>
>> __GFP_UNTAGGED: if possible, return memory that is either
>> untagged or that is tagged but has tag checks
>> disabled when accessed through page_address().
>> Using this flag can speed up page allocation
>> and freeing, and can reduce runtime overhead
>> by not performing page checking. For now,
>> only considered with HW-tag based KASAN.
> Its again confusing as __GFP_UNTAGGED will not return untagged memory
> in case of KASAN_SW_TAGS.
>
> As __GFP_SKIP_KASAN skips only for HW_TAGS mode, the more appropriate name
> may be:
> __GFP_SKIP_HW_POSION

Also not really the right fit I think.

>
> No matter the final name, it may be worth the effort to rename / do better
> handling of this in the code. Let's keep it a separate from this series.

Well, the point I am making is that

(1) you are adding more users of __GFP_SKIP_KASAN

(2) __GFP_SKIP_KASAN is a mess

I'll try to sort that out, but be prepared that the flag name might
change underneath your feet :)

--
Cheers,

David