Linux kernel mirror (for testing) git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
kernel os linux

Documentation: Document the kernel flag bdev_allow_write_mounted

Commit ed5cc702d311 ("block: Add config option to not allow writing to mounted
devices") added a Kconfig option along with a kernel command-line tuning to
control writes to mounted block devices, as a means to deal with fuzzers like
Syzkaller, that provokes kernel crashes by directly writing on block devices
bypassing the filesystem (so the FS has no awareness and cannot cope with that).

The patch just missed adding such kernel command-line option to the kernel
documentation, so let's fix that.

Cc: Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@acm.org>
Cc: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Guilherme G. Piccoli <gpiccoli@igalia.com>
Reviewed-by: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240828145045.309835-1-gpiccoli@igalia.com

authored by

Guilherme G. Piccoli and committed by
Jonathan Corbet
e04eb52b 34ea875c

+12
+12
Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
··· 517 517 Format: <io>,<irq>,<mode> 518 518 See header of drivers/net/hamradio/baycom_ser_hdx.c. 519 519 520 + bdev_allow_write_mounted= 521 + Format: <bool> 522 + Control the ability to open a mounted block device 523 + for writing, i.e., allow / disallow writes that bypass 524 + the FS. This was implemented as a means to prevent 525 + fuzzers from crashing the kernel by overwriting the 526 + metadata underneath a mounted FS without its awareness. 527 + This also prevents destructive formatting of mounted 528 + filesystems by naive storage tooling that don't use 529 + O_EXCL. Default is Y and can be changed through the 530 + Kconfig option CONFIG_BLK_DEV_WRITE_MOUNTED. 531 + 520 532 bert_disable [ACPI] 521 533 Disable BERT OS support on buggy BIOSes. 522 534