Re: [PATCH v5 06/10] Uprobes: Support SDT markers having reference count (semaphore)

[Oleg Nesterov]

forgot to mention...

Of course, I am not sure that UPROBE_KERN_CTR can actually work, there are a lot
of details. But if it can, then we can also make ->ref_ctr_offset a consumer property.

On 07/03, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
>
> On 07/03, Ravi Bangoria wrote:
> >
> > > OK, and how exactly they update the counter? I mean, can we assume that, say,
> > > bcc or systemtap can only increment or decrement it?
> >
> > I don't think we can assume anything here because this is all in user's
> > control. User can even manually go and update the counter by directly
> > hooking into the memory.
>
> Then how this all can work? I understand that user-space can do anything with
> this counter, but we do not care if it does something wrong, say nullifies the
> ctr incremented by kernel.
>
> I don't understand this. I think that if a user registers uprobe with
> ->ref_ctr_offset != 0 we can safely assume that this is a counter, and we do
> not care if userspace corrupts it.
>
> > > If yes, perhaps we can simplify the kernel code...
> >
> > Sure, let me know if you have any better idea.
>
> Can't we (ab)use the most significant bit in this counter?
>
> To simplify, lets suppose for the moment that 2 different uprobes can't have
> the same ->ref_ctr_offset. Then we can do something like
>
> 	#define UPROBE_KERN_CTR		(SHRT_MAX + 1)	// MSB
>
> 	install_breakpoint:
>
> 		for (each valid_ref_ctr_vma which maps uprobe->ref_ctr_offset)
> 			*ctr_ptr |= UPROBE_KERN_CTR;
>
> 		set_swbp();
>
> and
>
> 	remove_breakpoint:
>
> 		for (each valid_ref_ctr_vma which maps uprobe->ref_ctr_offset)
> 			*ctr_ptr &= ~UPROBE_KERN_CTR;
>
> 		set_orig_insn();
>
> IOW, we increment/decrement by UPROBE_KERN_CTR, not by 1. But this way the
> "increment" is idempotent, we do not care if "|=" or "&=" was applied more than
> once, we do not need to record the fact that the counter was already incremented,
> and inc/dec are always balanced.
>
>
> Now, lets recall that multiple uprobes can share the same counter. install_breakpoint()
> is still fine, and we only need to add the additional code into remove_breakpoint:
>
> 		for (each uprobe with the same inode and ref_ctr_offset)
> 			if (filter_chain(uprobe))
> 				goto keep_ctr;
>
> 		for (each valid_ref_ctr_vma which maps uprobe->ref_ctr_offset)
> 			*ctr_ptr &= ~UPROBE_KERN_CTR;
>
> 	keep_ctr:
> 		set_orig_insn();
>
>
> Just an idea.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Oleg.