Re: [PATCH 1/4] glibc: Perform rseq(2) registration at C startup and thread creation (v7)

From: Carlos O'Donell
Date: Wed Mar 27 2019 - 16:38:56 EST


On 3/27/19 5:16 AM, Martin Schwidefsky wrote:
On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 11:54:32 -0400 (EDT)
Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

+++ b/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/s390/bits/rseq.h
[...]
+
+/* Signature required before each abort handler code. */
+#define RSEQ_SIG 0x53053053

Why not a s390 specific value here?

s390 also has the abort handler in a __rseq_failure section:

#define RSEQ_ASM_DEFINE_ABORT(label, teardown, abort_label) \
".pushsection __rseq_failure, \"ax\"\n\t" \
".long " __rseq_str(RSEQ_SIG) "\n\t" \
__rseq_str(label) ":\n\t" \
teardown \
"j %l[" __rseq_str(abort_label) "]\n\t" \
".popsection\n\t"

Same question applies as powerpc: since disassemblers will try to decode
that instruction, would it be better to define it as a valid one ?

[...]

A 4-byte sequence starting with 0x53 is decoded as a "diebr" instruction.
And please replace that "j %l[...]" with a "jg %l[...]", the branch target
range of the "j" instruction is 64K, not enough for the general case.

Why was this particular operated selected?
So on s390 the RSEQ_SIG will show up as an unexpected "divide to integer"
instruction that can't be reached by any control flow?

Can we use a NOP with a unique value in an immediate operand?

The goal being to have something that won't confuse during a debug
session, or that the debugger can ignore (like constant pools on Arm)

--
Cheers,
Carlos.