Re: [PATCH] x86, syscalls: use SYSCALL_DEFINE() macros for sys_modify_ldt()

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Wed Oct 18 2017 - 12:18:44 EST



* Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> We do not have tracepoints for sys_modify_ldt() because we define
> it directly instead of using the normal SYSCALL_DEFINEx() macros.
>
> However, there is a reason sys_modify_ldt() does not use the macros:
> it has an 'int' return type instead of 'unsigned long'. This is
> a bug, but it's a bug cemented in the ABI.
>
> What does this mean? If we return -EINVAL from a function that
> returns 'int', we have 0x00000000ffffffea in %rax. But, if we
> return -EINVAL from a function returning 'unsigned long', we end
> up with 0xffffffffffffffea in %rax, which is wrong.
>
> To work around this and maintain the 'int' behavior while using
> the SYSCALL_DEFINEx() macros, so we add a cast to 'unsigned int'
> in both implementations of sys_modify_ldt().
>
> Cc: x86@xxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> ---
>
> b/arch/x86/include/asm/syscalls.h | 2 +-
> b/arch/x86/kernel/ldt.c | 16 +++++++++++++---
> b/arch/x86/um/ldt.c | 6 ++++--
> 3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

Fails to build on UML:

/home/mingo/tip/arch/x86/um/ldt.c:372:29: error: expected â)â before âintâ
SYSCALL_DEFINE3(modify_ldt, int , func , void __user * , ptr ,
^
/home/mingo/tip/arch/x86/um/ldt.c:206:13: warning: âdo_modify_ldt_skasâ defined
but not used [-Wunused-function]
static long do_modify_ldt_skas(int func, void __user *ptr,

etc.

Thanks,

Ingo