kcsan: Add core support for a subset of weak memory modeling

Add support for modeling a subset of weak memory, which will enable
detection of a subset of data races due to missing memory barriers.

KCSAN's approach to detecting missing memory barriers is based on
modeling access reordering, and enabled if `CONFIG_KCSAN_WEAK_MEMORY=y`,
which depends on `CONFIG_KCSAN_STRICT=y`. The feature can be enabled or
disabled at boot and runtime via the `kcsan.weak_memory` boot parameter.

Each memory access for which a watchpoint is set up, is also selected
for simulated reordering within the scope of its function (at most 1
in-flight access).

We are limited to modeling the effects of "buffering" (delaying the
access), since the runtime cannot "prefetch" accesses (therefore no
acquire modeling). Once an access has been selected for reordering, it
is checked along every other access until the end of the function scope.
If an appropriate memory barrier is encountered, the access will no
longer be considered for reordering.

When the result of a memory operation should be ordered by a barrier,
KCSAN can then detect data races where the conflict only occurs as a
result of a missing barrier due to reordering accesses.

Suggested-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 20 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/lib/Kconfig.kcsan b/lib/Kconfig.kcsan
index e0a93ffdef30..e4394ea8068b 100644
--- a/lib/Kconfig.kcsan
+++ b/lib/Kconfig.kcsan
@@ -191,6 +191,26 @@ config KCSAN_STRICT
 	  closely aligns with the rules defined by the Linux-kernel memory
 	  consistency model (LKMM).
 
+config KCSAN_WEAK_MEMORY
+	bool "Enable weak memory modeling to detect missing memory barriers"
+	default y
+	depends on KCSAN_STRICT
+	# We can either let objtool nop __tsan_func_{entry,exit}() and builtin
+	# atomics instrumentation in .noinstr.text, or use a compiler that can
+	# implement __no_kcsan to really remove all instrumentation.
+	depends on STACK_VALIDATION || CC_IS_GCC
+	help
+	  Enable support for modeling a subset of weak memory, which allows
+	  detecting a subset of data races due to missing memory barriers.
+
+	  Depends on KCSAN_STRICT, because the options strenghtening certain
+	  plain accesses by default (depending on !KCSAN_STRICT) reduce the
+	  ability to detect any data races invoving reordered accesses, in
+	  particular reordered writes.
+
+	  Weak memory modeling relies on additional instrumentation and may
+	  affect performance.
+
 config KCSAN_REPORT_VALUE_CHANGE_ONLY
 	bool "Only report races where watcher observed a data value change"
 	default y