<feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
<title>linux-stable.git/drivers/md/dm-pcache/dm_pcache.c, branch linux-rolling-stable</title>
<subtitle>Linux kernel stable tree</subtitle>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/'/>
<entry>
<title>dm-pcache: reject option groups without values</title>
<updated>2026-07-24T14:21:10+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Samuel Moelius</name>
<email>sam.moelius@trailofbits.com</email>
</author>
<published>2026-06-29T15:47:40+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=0cbe13fe540330d31e5273bbf8cbd66bc7c9cb5a'/>
<id>0cbe13fe540330d31e5273bbf8cbd66bc7c9cb5a</id>
<content type='text'>
commit d9c631e3fbd44246a2be781d26cfacbb9b8ec127 upstream.

The pcache target parses optional arguments as name/value pairs.  A
table that advertises one optional argument and supplies only a
recognized option name, for example "cache_mode", reaches
parse_cache_opts() with argc == 1.  The parser consumes the name,
decrements argc to zero, then calls dm_shift_arg() again for the value.
dm_shift_arg() returns NULL when no arguments remain, and the following
strcmp() dereferences that NULL pointer.

Check that each recognized option has a value before consuming it.  This
keeps valid "cache_mode writeback" and "data_crc true/false" tables
unchanged while making malformed tables fail during target construction
with a precise missing-value error.

Assisted-by: Codex:gpt-5.5-cyber-preview
Signed-off-by: Samuel Moelius &lt;sam.moelius@trailofbits.com&gt;
Reviewed-by:  Zheng Gu &lt;cengku@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka &lt;mpatocka@redhat.com&gt;
Fixes: 1d57628ff95b ("dm-pcache: add persistent cache target in device-mapper")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman &lt;gregkh@linuxfoundation.org&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
commit d9c631e3fbd44246a2be781d26cfacbb9b8ec127 upstream.

The pcache target parses optional arguments as name/value pairs.  A
table that advertises one optional argument and supplies only a
recognized option name, for example "cache_mode", reaches
parse_cache_opts() with argc == 1.  The parser consumes the name,
decrements argc to zero, then calls dm_shift_arg() again for the value.
dm_shift_arg() returns NULL when no arguments remain, and the following
strcmp() dereferences that NULL pointer.

Check that each recognized option has a value before consuming it.  This
keeps valid "cache_mode writeback" and "data_crc true/false" tables
unchanged while making malformed tables fail during target construction
with a precise missing-value error.

Assisted-by: Codex:gpt-5.5-cyber-preview
Signed-off-by: Samuel Moelius &lt;sam.moelius@trailofbits.com&gt;
Reviewed-by:  Zheng Gu &lt;cengku@gmail.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka &lt;mpatocka@redhat.com&gt;
Fixes: 1d57628ff95b ("dm-pcache: add persistent cache target in device-mapper")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman &lt;gregkh@linuxfoundation.org&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Convert 'alloc_obj' family to use the new default GFP_KERNEL argument</title>
<updated>2026-02-22T01:09:51+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Linus Torvalds</name>
<email>torvalds@linux-foundation.org</email>
</author>
<published>2026-02-22T00:37:42+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=bf4afc53b77aeaa48b5409da5c8da6bb4eff7f43'/>
<id>bf4afc53b77aeaa48b5409da5c8da6bb4eff7f43</id>
<content type='text'>
This was done entirely with mindless brute force, using

    git grep -l '\&lt;k[vmz]*alloc_objs*(.*, GFP_KERNEL)' |
        xargs sed -i 's/\(alloc_objs*(.*\), GFP_KERNEL)/\1)/'

to convert the new alloc_obj() users that had a simple GFP_KERNEL
argument to just drop that argument.

Note that due to the extreme simplicity of the scripting, any slightly
more complex cases spread over multiple lines would not be triggered:
they definitely exist, but this covers the vast bulk of the cases, and
the resulting diff is also then easier to check automatically.

For the same reason the 'flex' versions will be done as a separate
conversion.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
This was done entirely with mindless brute force, using

    git grep -l '\&lt;k[vmz]*alloc_objs*(.*, GFP_KERNEL)' |
        xargs sed -i 's/\(alloc_objs*(.*\), GFP_KERNEL)/\1)/'

to convert the new alloc_obj() users that had a simple GFP_KERNEL
argument to just drop that argument.

Note that due to the extreme simplicity of the scripting, any slightly
more complex cases spread over multiple lines would not be triggered:
they definitely exist, but this covers the vast bulk of the cases, and
the resulting diff is also then easier to check automatically.

For the same reason the 'flex' versions will be done as a separate
conversion.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>treewide: Replace kmalloc with kmalloc_obj for non-scalar types</title>
<updated>2026-02-21T09:02:28+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Kees Cook</name>
<email>kees@kernel.org</email>
</author>
<published>2026-02-21T07:49:23+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=69050f8d6d075dc01af7a5f2f550a8067510366f'/>
<id>69050f8d6d075dc01af7a5f2f550a8067510366f</id>
<content type='text'>
This is the result of running the Coccinelle script from
scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci. The script is designed to
avoid scalar types (which need careful case-by-case checking), and
instead replace kmalloc-family calls that allocate struct or union
object instances:

Single allocations:	kmalloc(sizeof(TYPE), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_obj(TYPE, ...)

Array allocations:	kmalloc_array(COUNT, sizeof(TYPE), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_objs(TYPE, COUNT, ...)

Flex array allocations:	kmalloc(struct_size(PTR, FAM, COUNT), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_flex(*PTR, FAM, COUNT, ...)

(where TYPE may also be *VAR)

The resulting allocations no longer return "void *", instead returning
"TYPE *".

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook &lt;kees@kernel.org&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
This is the result of running the Coccinelle script from
scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci. The script is designed to
avoid scalar types (which need careful case-by-case checking), and
instead replace kmalloc-family calls that allocate struct or union
object instances:

Single allocations:	kmalloc(sizeof(TYPE), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_obj(TYPE, ...)

Array allocations:	kmalloc_array(COUNT, sizeof(TYPE), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_objs(TYPE, COUNT, ...)

Flex array allocations:	kmalloc(struct_size(PTR, FAM, COUNT), ...)
are replaced with:	kmalloc_flex(*PTR, FAM, COUNT, ...)

(where TYPE may also be *VAR)

The resulting allocations no longer return "void *", instead returning
"TYPE *".

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook &lt;kees@kernel.org&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>dm-pcache: add persistent cache target in device-mapper</title>
<updated>2025-08-25T13:25:29+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Dongsheng Yang</name>
<email>dongsheng.yang@linux.dev</email>
</author>
<published>2025-08-12T08:24:52+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=1d57628ff95b32d5cfa8d8f50e07690c161e9cf0'/>
<id>1d57628ff95b32d5cfa8d8f50e07690c161e9cf0</id>
<content type='text'>
This patch introduces dm-pcache, a new DM target that places a DAX-
capable persistent-memory device in front of any slower block device and
uses it as a high-throughput, low-latency  cache.

Design highlights
-----------------
- DAX data path – data is copied directly between DRAM and the pmem
  mapping, bypassing the block layer’s overhead.

- Segmented, crash-consistent layout
  - all layout metadata are dual-replicated CRC-protected.
  - atomic kset flushes; key replay on mount guarantees cache integrity
    even after power loss.

- Striped multi-tree index
  - Multi‑tree indexing for high parallelism.
  - overlap-resolution logic ensures non-intersecting cached extents.

- Background services
  - write-back worker flushes dirty keys in order, preserving backing-device
    crash consistency. This is important for checkpoint in cloud storage.
  - garbage collector reclaims clean segments when utilisation exceeds a
    tunable threshold.

- Data integrity – optional CRC32 on cached payload; metadata always protected.

Comparison with existing block-level caches
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Feature                          | pcache (this patch)             | bcache                       | dm-writecache             |
|----------------------------------|---------------------------------|------------------------------|---------------------------|
| pmem access method               | DAX                             | bio (block I/O)              | DAX                       |
| Write latency (4 K rand-write)   | ~5 µs                           | ~20 µs                       | ~5 µs                     |
| Concurrency                      | multi subtree index             | global index tree            | single tree + wc_lock     |
| IOPS (4K randwrite, 32 numjobs)  | 2.1 M                           | 352 K                        | 283 K                     |
| Read-cache support               | YES                             | YES                          | NO                        |
| Deployment                       | no re-format of backend         | backend devices must be      | no re-format of backend   |
|                                  |                                 | reformatted                  |                           |
| Write-back ordering              | log-structured;                 | no ordering guarantee        | no ordering guarantee     |
|                                  | preserves app-IO-order          |                              |                           |
| Data integrity checks            | metadata + data CRC(optional)   | metadata CRC only            | none                      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Signed-off-by: Dongsheng Yang &lt;dongsheng.yang@linux.dev&gt;
Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka &lt;mpatocka@redhat.com&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
This patch introduces dm-pcache, a new DM target that places a DAX-
capable persistent-memory device in front of any slower block device and
uses it as a high-throughput, low-latency  cache.

Design highlights
-----------------
- DAX data path – data is copied directly between DRAM and the pmem
  mapping, bypassing the block layer’s overhead.

- Segmented, crash-consistent layout
  - all layout metadata are dual-replicated CRC-protected.
  - atomic kset flushes; key replay on mount guarantees cache integrity
    even after power loss.

- Striped multi-tree index
  - Multi‑tree indexing for high parallelism.
  - overlap-resolution logic ensures non-intersecting cached extents.

- Background services
  - write-back worker flushes dirty keys in order, preserving backing-device
    crash consistency. This is important for checkpoint in cloud storage.
  - garbage collector reclaims clean segments when utilisation exceeds a
    tunable threshold.

- Data integrity – optional CRC32 on cached payload; metadata always protected.

Comparison with existing block-level caches
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Feature                          | pcache (this patch)             | bcache                       | dm-writecache             |
|----------------------------------|---------------------------------|------------------------------|---------------------------|
| pmem access method               | DAX                             | bio (block I/O)              | DAX                       |
| Write latency (4 K rand-write)   | ~5 µs                           | ~20 µs                       | ~5 µs                     |
| Concurrency                      | multi subtree index             | global index tree            | single tree + wc_lock     |
| IOPS (4K randwrite, 32 numjobs)  | 2.1 M                           | 352 K                        | 283 K                     |
| Read-cache support               | YES                             | YES                          | NO                        |
| Deployment                       | no re-format of backend         | backend devices must be      | no re-format of backend   |
|                                  |                                 | reformatted                  |                           |
| Write-back ordering              | log-structured;                 | no ordering guarantee        | no ordering guarantee     |
|                                  | preserves app-IO-order          |                              |                           |
| Data integrity checks            | metadata + data CRC(optional)   | metadata CRC only            | none                      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Signed-off-by: Dongsheng Yang &lt;dongsheng.yang@linux.dev&gt;
Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka &lt;mpatocka@redhat.com&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
