Re: [BUGFIX][PATCH -rc/-mm] prevent kprobes from catching spuriouspage faults

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Thu Feb 05 2009 - 21:06:24 EST



* Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> * Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > * Ingo Molnar (mingo@xxxxxxx) wrote:
> > >
> > > * Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > - if (notify_page_fault(regs))
> > > > - return;
> > > > if (unlikely(kmmio_fault(regs, address)))
> > > > return;
> > > >
> > > > @@ -634,6 +632,9 @@ void __kprobes do_page_fault(struct pt_r
> > > > if (spurious_fault(address, error_code))
> > > > return;
> > > >
> > > > + /* kprobes don't want to hook the spurious faults. */
> > > > + if (notify_page_fault(regs))
> > > > + return;
> > > > /*
> > > > * Don't take the mm semaphore here. If we fixup a prefetch
> > > > * fault we could otherwise deadlock.
> > > > @@ -641,6 +642,9 @@ void __kprobes do_page_fault(struct pt_r
> > > > goto bad_area_nosemaphore;
> > > > }
> > > >
> > > > + /* kprobes don't want to hook the spurious faults. */
> > > > + if (notify_page_fault(regs))
> > > > + return;
> > >
> > > I dont know - this spreads that callback to two places now. Any
> > > reason why kprobes cannot call spurious_fault(), if there's a
> > > probe active?
> > >
> > > Also, moving that would remove the planned cleanup of merging these
> > > two into one call:
> > >
> > > if (notify_page_fault(regs))
> > > return;
> > > if (unlikely(kmmio_fault(regs, address)))
> > > return;
> > >
> > > We should reduce the probing cross section, not increase it,
> > > especially in such a critical codepath as the pagefault handler.
> > >
> > > Btw., why cannot kprobes install a dynamic probe to the fault
> > > handler itself? That way the default path would have no such
> > > callbacks and checks at all.
> > >
> >
> > Or we could simply merge my 2 LTTng page fault handler tracepoints per
> > architecture and be done with it ?
> >
> > I'd need to clean up the patchset a little bit to fold a few patches,
> > but that would be straightforward enough.
>
> yes, that would be an option too - it depends on the details of how it looks
> like and what kind of complexity it hides.

Linus just merged the fix so the urgency of the matter has become lower :)

Ingo
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