linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC] powerpc: Panic on jump label code patching failure

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Message-ID: <87qzwki6fv.fsf@ritesh.list@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2025 09:22:04 +0530
From: Ritesh Harjani (IBM) <riteshh@...ux.ibm.com>
To: Andrew Donnellan <ajd@...ux.ibm.com>, linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, maddy@...ux.ibm.com, mpe@...erman.id.au,
        christophe.leroy@...roup.eu, peterz@...radead.org, jpoimboe@...nel.org,
        jbaron@...mai.com
Cc: npiggin@...il.com, rostedt@...dmis.org, ardb@...nel.org,
        Erhard Furtner <erhard_f@...lbox.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] powerpc: Panic on jump label code patching failure

Andrew Donnellan <ajd@...ux.ibm.com> writes:

> If patch_branch() or patch_instruction() fails while updating a jump
> label, we presently fail silently, leading to unpredictable behaviour
> later on.
>
> Change arch_jump_label_transform() to panic on a code patching failure,
> matching the existing behaviour of arch_static_call_transform().
>
> Reported-by: Erhard Furtner <erhard_f@...lbox.org>
> Signed-off-by: Andrew Donnellan <ajd@...ux.ibm.com>
>
> ---
>
> Ran into this while debugging an issue that Erhard reported to me about my
> PAGE_TABLE_CHECK series on a G4, where updating a static key failed
> silently, but only for one call site, leading to an incorrect reference
> count later on. This looks to be due to the issue fixed in [0]. A loud
> failure would have saved us all considerable debugging time.
>
> Should I change the return type of arch_jump_label_transform() and handle
> this in an arch-independent way? Are there other users of code patching
> in powerpc that ought to be hardened?
>
> Or is this excessive?
>
> [0] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/linuxppc-dev/patch/4b5e6eb281d7b1ea77619bee17095f905a125168.1757003584.git.christophe.leroy@csgroup.eu/
> ---
>  arch/powerpc/kernel/jump_label.c | 9 +++++++--
>  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/jump_label.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/jump_label.c
> index 2659e1ac8604..80d41ed7ac50 100644
> --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/jump_label.c
> +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/jump_label.c
> @@ -12,9 +12,14 @@ void arch_jump_label_transform(struct jump_entry *entry,
>  			       enum jump_label_type type)
>  {
>  	u32 *addr = (u32 *)jump_entry_code(entry);
> +	int err;
>  
>  	if (type == JUMP_LABEL_JMP)
> -		patch_branch(addr, jump_entry_target(entry), 0);
> +		err = patch_branch(addr, jump_entry_target(entry), 0);
>  	else
> -		patch_instruction(addr, ppc_inst(PPC_RAW_NOP()));
> +		err = patch_instruction(addr, ppc_inst(PPC_RAW_NOP()));
> +
> +	if (err)
> +		panic("%s: patching failed, err %d, type %d, addr %pS, target %pS\n",
> +		      __func__, err, type, addr, (void *)jump_entry_target(entry));
>  }

arch_jump_label_transform() is mainly getting called from
__jump_level_update() and it's used for enabling or updating static keys / branch.

But static keys can also be used by drivers / module subsystem whose
initialization happens late. Although I understand that if the above
fails, it might fail much before, from the arch setup code itself, but
panic() still feels like a big hammer.

Would pr_err() print with WARN_ON_ONCE(1) would suffice in case of an
err?

Also you said you ran into a problem at just one call site where above
was silently failing. With the above change are you able to hit the
panic() now? Because from what I see in patch_instruction(), it mainly
will boil down to calling __patch_mem() which always returns 0.
Although there are other places where there can be an error returned,
so I was wondering if that is what you were hitting or something else?

-ritesh

> -- 
> 2.51.0