linux-kernel - Re: [RFT PATCH 04/13] kprobes: Make optimizer delay to 1 second

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Wed, 22 Jan 2020 08:54:32 -0800
From:   "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>
To:     Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc:     Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Brendan Gregg <brendan.d.gregg@...il.com>,
        Alexei Starovoitov <ast@...nel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>, bpf@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Daniel Borkmann <daniel@...earbox.net>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...nel.org>,
        "David S . Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>, joel@...lfernandes.org,
        "Naveen N . Rao" <naveen.n.rao@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Anil S Keshavamurthy <anil.s.keshavamurthy@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [RFT PATCH 04/13] kprobes: Make optimizer delay to 1 second

On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:12:40PM +0900, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 07:11:15 -0500
> Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 16:23:17 +0900
> > Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:29:05 -0500
> > > Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Thu, 16 Jan 2020 23:44:52 +0900
> > > > Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > >   
> > > > > Since the 5 jiffies delay for the optimizer is too
> > > > > short to wait for other probes, make it longer,
> > > > > like 1 second.  
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Masami,
> > > > 
> > > > Can you explain more *why* 5 jiffies is too short.  
> > > 
> > > Yes, I had introduced this 5 jiffies delay for multiple probe registration
> > > and unregistration like systemtap, which will use array-based interface to
> > > register/unregister. In that case, 5 jiffies will be enough for the delay
> > > to wait for other kprobe registration/unregsitration.
> > > 
> > > However, since perf and ftrace register/unregister probes one-by-one with
> > > RCU synchronization interval, the optimizer will be started before
> > > finishing to register/unregister all probes.
> > > And the optimizer locks kprobe_mutex a while -- RCU-tasks synchronization.
> > > Since the kprobe_mutex is also involved in disabling kprobes, this also
> > > stops probe-event disabling.
> > > 
> > > Maybe 5 jiffies is enough for adding/removing a few probe events, but
> > > not enough for dozens of probe events.
> > > 
> > 
> > Perhaps we should have a mechanism that can detect new probes being
> > added, and just continue to delay the optimization, instead of having
> > some arbitrary delay.
> 
> Yes, that is what [03/13] does :) 
> Anyway, it seems that the RCU-synchronization takes more than 5 jiffies.
> And in that case, [03/13] still doesn't work. That's why I added this patch
> after that.

If the RCU synchronization is synchronize_rcu_tasks(), then yes, it
will often take way more than 5 jiffies.  If it is synchronize_rcu(),
5 jiffies would not be unusual, especially on larger systems.
But in the case of synchronize_rcu(), one option is to instead use
synchronize_rcu_expedited().  It is not clear that this last is really
justified in this case, but figured it might be worth mentioning.

							Thanx, Paul