Re: [PATCH v2 07/15] x86/lib/copy_user_64.S: Convert to ALTERNATIVE_2

From: Borislav Petkov
Date: Thu Mar 05 2015 - 03:36:39 EST


On Thu, Mar 05, 2015 at 01:32:49AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> We could also do a (limited) relink during early bootup, as part of
> the alternatives patching pass in essence: for that we need to stick
> the relocation info into a section and put that into the vmlinux.

Oh, you want us to do our own asm inlining, so to speak, and save us
even a CALL. Well, that would be more involved and saving a single CALL
is making me question the effort.

Also, with shifted virtual addresses at boot time, debuggability becomes
a serious pain because "objdump -D vmlinux" output is worthless all of a
sudden.

For example, even during doing those patches, I had to go and dump
kernel memory to see what actually gets patched in. And without kvm and
the monitor console, I would've had a serious hard time. If you change
larger portions of the kernel at early boot, that might make the whole
endeavor of debugging a serious undertaking. I already dread the moment
when I'd have to look at a kaslr'ed splat.

We'll see.

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

ECO tip #101: Trim your mails when you reply.
--
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/