Re: [PATCH v4 3/9] bpf/btf: Add a function to search a member of a struct/union

From: Florent Revest
Date: Wed Aug 02 2023 - 10:49:14 EST


On Wed, Aug 2, 2023 at 3:56 PM Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 1 Aug 2023 20:40:54 -0400
> Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2 Aug 2023 09:21:46 +0900
> > Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > > Then use kprobes. When I asked Masami what the difference between fprobes
> > > > and kprobes was, he told me that it would be that it would no longer rely
> > > > on the slower FTRACE_WITH_REGS. But currently, it still does.
> > >
> > > kprobes needs to keep using pt_regs because software-breakpoint exception
> > > handler gets that. And fprobe is used for bpf multi-kprobe interface,
> > > but I think it can be optional.
> > >
> > > So until user-land tool supports the ftrace_regs, you can just disable
> > > using fprobes if CONFIG_DYNAMIC_FTRACE_WITH_REGS=n
> >
> > I'm confused. I asked about the difference between kprobes on ftrace
> > and fprobes, and you said it was to get rid of the requirement of
> > FTRACE_WITH_REGS.
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230120205535.98998636329ca4d5f8325bc3@xxxxxxxxxx/
>
> Yes, it is for enabling fprobe (and fprobe-event) on more architectures.
> I don't think it's possible to change everything at once. So, it will be
> changed step by step. At the first step, I will replace pt_regs with
> ftrace_regs, and make bpf_trace.c and fprobe_event depends on
> FTRACE_WITH_REGS.

Just a small note that, strictly speaking,
CONFIG_DYNAMIC_FTRACE_WITH_REGS=y is not enough. fprobe_init() would
also need a way to set FTRACE_OPS_FL_SAVE_REGS conditionally. (you
could be on an arch that supports saving either regs or args and if
you don't set FTRACE_OPS_FL_SAVE_REGS you'd go through the args
trampoline and get a ftrace_regs that doesn't hold a pt_regs)