Re: [PATCH v3 0/6] Static calls

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 1:22 PM Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:46:39PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:31 PM Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > I was referring to the fact that a single static call key update will
> > > usually result in patching multiple call sites.  But you're right, it's
> > > only 1-2 trampolines per text_poke_bp() invocation.  Though eventually
> > > we may want to batch all the writes like what Daniel has proposed for
> > > jump labels, to reduce IPIs.
> >
> > Yeah, my suggestion doesn't allow for batching, since it would
> > basically generate one trampoline for every rewritten instruction.
>
> As Andy said, I think batching would still be possible, it's just that
> we'd have to create multiple trampolines at a time.
>
> Or... we could do a hybrid approach: create a single custom trampoline
> which has the call destination patched in, but put the return address in
> %rax -- which is always clobbered, even for callee-saved PV ops.  Like:
>

One think I particularly like about the current design is that there
are no requirements at all on the calling convention.  I think it
seems fragile to add a calling convention constraint that only applies
when there's a race.  I'd rather do a longjmp-like hack or a stack gap
adding hack than make the actual static calls more fragile.