lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2015]   [Jan]   [30]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Question about ftrace, dynamically allocated trampolines and dynamic fops
On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Steven Rostedt wrote:

> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:40:58 +0100 (CET)
> Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > solving a possible race condition in kGraft and thinking about the same in
> > klp live patching I looked quite a lot at ftrace code. One thing about
> > recent dynamic trampolines seems a bit odd. For dynamic fops
> > (FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC is set in ops->flags) arch_ftrace_update_trampoline
> > is called only for nonpreemptive kernels in ftrace_update_trampoline. The
> > reason is obvious and well described in the comment there. However the
> > actual callback function in arch_ftrace_update_trampoline is
> > determined by call to ftrace_ops_get_func which gives generic
> > ftrace_ops_list_func for dynamic ops. This function disables preemption
> > (because of traversing rcu protected list), so it should be safe to use
> > dynamic trampolines even for dynamic fops in preemptive kernels. Is this
> > correct?
>
> No, the dynamic trampoline itself is not safe. I explained this at the
> LinuxConEU/Plumbers conference, although the slides don't explain it
> well :-/, otherwise I would have just pointed you to them.
>
> Basically what the issue is, if a task jumps to the dynamic trampoline
> and gets preempted, how would you ever free that trampoline again?

Thanks for the reply. I know there is the problem with preemption and
trampolines. In such case schedule_on_each_cpu in ftrace_shutdown is not
enough. But it seems I didn't describe the current problem clearly. So
for x86...

The function ftrace_ops_get_func returns the function which the trampoline
should call. For FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC it always returns
ftrace_ops_list_func

ftrace_func_t ftrace_ops_get_func(struct ftrace_ops *ops)
{
/*
* If this is a dynamic ops or we force list func,
* then it needs to call the list anyway.
*/
if (ops->flags & FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC || FTRACE_FORCE_LIST_FUNC)
return ftrace_ops_list_func;
[...]

This function is called in arch_ftrace_update_trampoline after the
trampoline is created (it is also called in update_ftrace_function, but
that is not important for dynamic trampolines)...

void arch_ftrace_update_trampoline(struct ftrace_ops *ops)
{
[...]
if (ops->trampoline) {
/*
* The ftrace_ops caller may set up its own trampoline.
* In such a case, this code must not modify it.
*/
if (!(ops->flags & FTRACE_OPS_FL_ALLOC_TRAMP))
return;
} else {
ops->trampoline = create_trampoline(ops, &size);
if (!ops->trampoline)
return;
ops->trampoline_size = size;
}

offset = calc_trampoline_call_offset(ops->flags &
FTRACE_OPS_FL_SAVE_REGS);
ip = ops->trampoline + offset;

func = ftrace_ops_get_func(ops);

/* Do a safe modify in case the trampoline is executing */
new = ftrace_call_replace(ip, (unsigned long)func);
ret = update_ftrace_func(ip, new);
[...]
}

Thus the dynamic trampoline for FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC ops always calls
ftrace_ops_list_func.

Now, arch_ftrace_update_trampoline is called by
ftrace_update_trampoline...

static void ftrace_update_trampoline(struct ftrace_ops *ops)
{
/*
* Currently there's no safe way to free a trampoline when the kernel
* is configured with PREEMPT. That is because a task could be preempted
* when it jumped to the trampoline, it may be preempted for a long time
* depending on the system load, and currently there's no way to know
* when it will be off the trampoline. If the trampoline is freed
* too early, when the task runs again, it will be executing on freed
* memory and crash.
*/
#ifdef CONFIG_PREEMPT
/* Currently, only non dynamic ops can have a trampoline */
if (ops->flags & FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC)
return;
#endif

arch_ftrace_update_trampoline(ops);
}

The comment is theoretically correct. But since for FTRACE_OPS_FL_DYNAMIC
ftrace_ops_list_func is always called it is also not valid.
ftrace_ops_list_func disables preemption so schedule_on_each_cpu in
ftrace_shutdown does the trick.

Anyway I think the problem is the opposite. There should be no
ftrace_ops_list_func for dynamic trampoline. See below, please...

> Now for live kernel patching, we could add another flag that says
> permanent, that means the trampoline and the ops will never be free or
> change, and then it would be safe to use dynamic trampolines.

Yes, that would be the solution. Or could we use call_rcu_tasks? If I
remember correctly you wrote somewhere that you had such patch already
prepared but wanted to test it more. Is that correct?

> >
> > Or maybe the problem is the opposite. Why does the ftrace use
> > ftrace_ops_list_func in such situation? Even for nonpreemptive kernel and
> > dynamic fops ftrace_ops_list_func has unnecessary overhead.
>
> It points the dynamic ops (in non-preempt) to ftrace_ops_list_func? Are
> you sure about that. One way to verify is to
> cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/enabled_functions, which should show you
> want the dynamic ops points to.

I think so. One thing is the code above. And verification in
next-20150130 in qemu, CONFIG_PREEMPT=n,...

I livepatched /proc/cmdline and there is no other tracing involved

dsc1:~ # cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/enabled_functions
cmdline_proc_show (1) R I tramp: 0xffffffffa0004000 ->ftrace_ops_list_func+0x0/0x1a0
dsc1:~

I think that there should be direct call to the callback function (new
cmdline_proc_show).

Miroslav


\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2015-01-30 11:21    [W:0.179 / U:0.660 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site