linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v3] arm64: Improve kprobes test for atomic sequence

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Date:   Mon, 12 Sep 2016 14:19:40 -0400
From:   David Long <dave.long@...aro.org>
To:     Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc:     Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Anil S Keshavamurthy <anil.s.keshavamurthy@...el.com>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        catalin.marinas@....com,
        Sandeepa Prabhu <sandeepa.s.prabhu@...il.com>,
        William Cohen <wcohen@...hat.com>,
        Pratyush Anand <panand@...hat.com>,
        Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] arm64: Improve kprobes test for atomic sequence

On 09/12/2016 12:29 PM, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:53:43 -0400
> David Long <dave.long@...aro.org> wrote:
>
>> On 09/10/2016 01:48 AM, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
>>> On Fri,  9 Sep 2016 15:26:09 -0400
>>> David Long <dave.long@...aro.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: "David A. Long" <dave.long@...aro.org>
>>>>
>>>> Kprobes searches backwards a finite number of instructions to determine if
>>>> there is an attempt to probe a load/store exclusive sequence. It stops when
>>>> it hits the maximum number of instructions or a load or store exclusive.
>>>> However this means it can run up past the beginning of the function and
>>>> start looking at literal constants. This has been shown to cause a false
>>>> positive and blocks insertion of the probe. To fix this, further limit the
>>>> backwards search to stop if it hits a symbol address from kallsyms. The
>>>> presumption is that this is the entry point to this code (particularly for
>>>> the common case of placing probes at the beginning of functions).
>>>>
>>>> This also improves efficiency by not searching code that is not part of the
>>>> function. There may be some possibility that the label might not denote the
>>>> entry path to the probed instruction but the likelihood seems low and this
>>>> is just another example of how the kprobes user really needs to be
>>>> careful about what they are doing.
>>>
>>> Of course user should be careful, but also, in such case, kernel can reject
>>> to probe it.
>>>
>>
>> I'm not exactly sure what you mean.  I'm just saying when everything
>> goes right we still cannot promise perfection in detecting a probe
>> within an atomic sequence.  This patch will reject a probe that is after
>> a ldx and has no intervening kallsyms label (and assuming it's within
>> the defined maximum count of subsequent instructions).
>>
>
> Hmm, what I meant was the below code.
>
>>>> +	/*
>>>> +	 * If there's a symbol defined in front of and near enough to
>>>> +	 * the probe address assume it is the entry point to this
>>>> +	 * code and use it to further limit how far back we search
>>>> +	 * when determining if we're in an atomic sequence. If we could
>>>> +	 * not find any symbol skip the atomic test altogether as we
>>>> +	 * could otherwise end up searching irrelevant text/literals.
>>>> +	 * KPROBES depends on KALLSYMS so this last case should never
>>>> +	 * happen.
>>>> +	 */
>>>> +	if (kallsyms_lookup_size_offset((unsigned long) addr, &size, &offset)) {
>>>> +		if (offset < (MAX_ATOMIC_CONTEXT_SIZE*sizeof(kprobe_opcode_t)))
>>>> +			scan_end = addr - (offset / sizeof(kprobe_opcode_t));
>>>> +		else
>>>> +			scan_end = addr - MAX_ATOMIC_CONTEXT_SIZE;
>>>
>>>           } else
>>>                  return INSN_REJECTED;
>>>
>>>     that is what I expected...
>
> As you said above,
>
>>>> +	 * KPROBES depends on KALLSYMS so this last case should never
>>>> +	 * happen.
>
> If it should never happen, it also would be better to reject it because
> it is unexpected result.
>
> Thank you,
>

OK, cool.  Sounds like we're on the same page.

-dl