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Message-ID: <20160309091904.GA23039@lst.de>
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:19:04 +0100
From: Torsten Duwe <duwe@....de>
To: Balbir Singh <bsingharora@...il.com>
Cc: linuxppc-dev@...abs.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
rostedt@...dmis.org, kamalesh@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, pmladek@...e.com,
jeyu@...hat.com, jkosina@...e.cz, live-patching@...r.kernel.org,
mbenes@...e.cz
Subject: Re: [PATCH][v6][RFC] livepatch/ppc: Enable livepatching on powerpc
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 05:59:40PM +1100, Balbir Singh wrote:
>
> The previous revision was nacked by Torsten, but compared to the alternatives
I nacked it because I was confident it couldn't work. Same goes
for this one, sorry. My good intention was to save us all some work.
> @@ -1265,6 +1271,51 @@ ftrace_call:
> ld r0, LRSAVE(r1)
> mtlr r0
>
> +#ifdef CONFIG_LIVEPATCH
> + beq+ 4f /* likely(old_NIP == new_NIP) */
> + /*
> + * For a local call, restore this TOC after calling the patch function.
This is the key issue.
Ftrace_caller can gather and save the current r2 contents, no problem;
but the point is, it needs to be restored *after* the replacement function.
I see 3 ways to accomplish this:
1st: make _every_ replacement function aware of this, and make it restore
the TOC manually just before each return statement.
2nd: provide a global hook to do the job, and use a stack frame to execute it.
3rd: have a global hook like solution 2, but let it have its own data
structure, I'd call it a "shadow stack", for the real return addresses.
See struct fgraph_cpu_data in kernel/trace/trace_functions_graph.c
Using heuristics to determine whether the call was local or global
makes me feel highly uncomfortable; one day it will break and
nobody will remember why.
Balbir, the problem with your patch is that it goes only half the way from
my solution 2 towards solution 1. When you call a helper function on return,
you need a place to store the real return address.
I'll try to demonstrate a solution 1 as well, but you'll probably won't like
that either...
Torsten
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