Date:	Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:56:39 -0600
From:	Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>
To:	Miroslav Benes <mbenes@...e.cz>
Cc:	Seth Jennings <sjenning@...hat.com>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>,
	Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@...e.cz>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@...achi.com>,
	live-patching@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 6/9] livepatch: create per-task consistency model

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 04:59:17PM +0100, Miroslav Benes wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2015, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> 
> > Add a basic per-task consistency model.  This is the foundation which
> > will eventually enable us to patch those ~10% of security patches which
> > change function prototypes and/or data semantics.
> > 
> > When a patch is enabled, livepatch enters into a transition state where
> > tasks are converging from the old universe to the new universe.  If a
> > given task isn't using any of the patched functions, it's switched to
> > the new universe.  Once all the tasks have been converged to the new
> > universe, patching is complete.
> > 
> > The same sequence occurs when a patch is disabled, except the tasks
> > converge from the new universe to the old universe.
> > 
> > The /sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/transition file shows whether a patch
> > is in transition.  Only a single patch (the topmost patch on the stack)
> > can be in transition at a given time.  A patch can remain in the
> > transition state indefinitely, if any of the tasks are stuck in the
> > previous universe.
> > 
> > A transition can be reversed and effectively canceled by writing the
> > opposite value to the /sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/enabled file while
> > the transition is in progress.  Then all the tasks will attempt to
> > converge back to the original universe.
> 
> Hi Josh,
> 
> first, thanks a lot for great work. I'm starting to go through it and it's 
> gonna take me some time to do and send a complete review.

I know there are a lot of details to look at, please take your time.  I
really appreciate your review.  (And everybody else's, for that matter
:-)

> > +	/* success! unpatch obsolete functions and do some cleanup */
> > +
> > +	if (klp_universe_goal == KLP_UNIVERSE_OLD) {
> > +		klp_unpatch_objects(klp_transition_patch);
> > +
> > +		/* prevent ftrace handler from reading old func->transition */
> > +		synchronize_rcu();
> > +	}
> > +
> > +	pr_notice("'%s': %s complete\n", klp_transition_patch->mod->name,
> > +		  klp_universe_goal == KLP_UNIVERSE_NEW ? "patching" :
> > +							  "unpatching");
> > +
> > +	klp_complete_transition();
> > +}
> 
> ...synchronize_rcu() could be insufficient. There still can be some  
> process in our ftrace handler after the call.
> 
> Consider the following scenario:
> 
> When synchronize_rcu is called some process could have been preempted on 
> some other cpu somewhere at the start of the ftrace handler before  
> rcu_read_lock. synchronize_rcu waits for the grace period to pass, but that 
> does not mean anything for our process in the handler, because it is not 
> in rcu critical section. There is no guarantee that after synchronize_rcu 
> the process would be away from the handler. 
> 
> "Meanwhile" klp_try_complete_transition continues and calls 
> klp_complete_transition. This clears func->transition flags. Now the 
> process in the handler could be scheduled again. It reads the wrong value 
> of func->transition and redirection to the wrong function is done.
> 
> What do you think? I hope I made myself clear.

You really made me think.  But I don't think there's a race here.

Consider the two separate cases, patching and unpatching:

1. patching has completed: klp_universe_goal and all tasks'
   klp_universes are at KLP_UNIVERSE_NEW.  In this case, the value of
   func->transition doesn't matter, because we want to use the func at
   the top of the stack, and if klp_universe is NEW, the ftrace handler
   will do that, regardless of the value of func->transition.  This is
   why I didn't do the rcu_synchronize() in this case.  But maybe you're
   not worried about this case anyway, I just described it for the sake
   of completeness :-)

2. unpatching has completed: klp_universe_goal and all tasks'
   klp_universes are at KLP_UNIVERSE_OLD.  In this case, the value of
   func->transition _does_ matter.  However, notice that
   klp_unpatch_objects() is called before rcu_synchronize().  That
   removes the "new" func from the klp_ops stack.  Since the ftrace
   handler accesses the list _after_ calling rcu_read_lock(), it will
   never see the "new" func, and thus func->transition will never be
   set.

   That said, I think there is a race where the WARN_ON_ONCE(!func)
   could trigger here, and it wouldn't be an error.  So I think I'll
   remove the warning.

Does that make sense?

> There is the similar problem for dynamic trampolines in ftrace. You
> cannot remove them unless there is no process in the handler. I think
> rcu-tasks were merged a while ago for this purpose. However ftrace
> does not use them yet and I don't know if we could exploit them to
> solve this issue. I need to think more about it.

Ok, sounds like that's an ftrace bug that could affect us.

-- 
Josh
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