linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v3 0/6] Static calls

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Date:   Mon, 17 Feb 2020 22:10:27 +0100
From:   Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
To:     Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>
Cc:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        "the arch/x86 maintainers" <x86@...nel.org>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>,
        Jason Baron <jbaron@...mai.com>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Julia Cartwright <julia@...com>, Jessica Yu <jeyu@...nel.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Nadav Amit <namit@...are.com>,
        Rasmus Villemoes <linux@...musvillemoes.dk>,
        Edward Cree <ecree@...arflare.com>,
        Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 0/6] Static calls

On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 9:52 PM Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 09:30:23PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 04:59:35PM -0600, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > > With this version, I stopped trying to use text_poke_bp(), and instead
> > > went with a different approach: if the call site destination doesn't
> > > cross a cacheline boundary, just do an atomic write.  Otherwise, keep
> > > using the trampoline indefinitely.
> >
> > > - Get rid of the use of text_poke_bp(), in favor of atomic writes.
> > >   Out-of-line calls will be promoted to inline only if the call sites
> > >   don't cross cache line boundaries. [Linus/Andy]
> >
> > Can we perserve why text_poke_bp() didn't work? I seem to have forgotten
> > again. The problem was poking the return address onto the stack from the
> > int3 handler, or something along those lines?
>
> Right, emulating a call instruction from the #BP handler is ugly,
> because you have to somehow grow the stack to make room for the return
> address.  Personally I liked the idea of shifting the iret frame by 16
> bytes in the #DB entry code, but others hated it.
>
> So many bad-but-not-completely-unacceptable options to choose from.

Silly suggestion from someone who has skimmed the thread:

Wouldn't a retpoline-style trampoline solve this without needing
memory allocations? Let the interrupt handler stash the destination in
a percpu variable and clear IF in regs->flags. Something like:

void simulate_call(unsigned long target) {
  __this_cpu_write(static_call_restore_if, (regs->flags & X86_EFLAGS_IF) != 0);
  regs->flags &= ~X86_EFLAGS_IF;
  __this_cpu_write(static_call_trampoline_source, regs->ip + 5);
  __this_cpu_write(static_call_trampoline_target, target);
  regs->ip = magic_static_call_trampoline;
}

magic_static_call_trampoline:
; set up return address for returning from target function
pushl PER_CPU_VAR(static_call_trampoline_source)
; set up retpoline-style return address
pushl PER_CPU_VAR(static_call_trampoline_target)
; restore flags if needed
cmp PER_CPU_VAR(static_call_restore_if), 0
je 1f
sti ; NOTE: percpu data must not be accessed past this point
1:
ret ; "return" to the call target

By using a return to implement the call, we don't need any scratch
registers for the call.