Subject: Re: [PATCH/RFC] ppc64 livepatch: frameless klp_return_helper using odd TOC

From: Kamalesh Babulal <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 21:28:51 +0530

* Torsten Duwe <[email-masked]> [2016-03-24 11:27:57]:

> On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 03:44:55PM +0530, Kamalesh Babulal wrote:
> > * Torsten Duwe <[email-masked]> [2016-03-23 16:58:58]:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Since nobody liked the extra stack frame nor its workarounds, here is
> > > the next attempt. Assumptions:
> > > 
> > > 1. Heuristics are bad. The better they are, the more subtly the
> > >    way they might fail.
> > > 
> > > 2. The TOC pointer is usually dividable by 4, if not by 8. An odd
> > >    value never occurs.
> > > 
> > > Conclusively, this patch unambiguously creates an odd TOC value when
> > > an ftraced function's global entry point is used. Ftrace_caller will
> > > then immediately fix it, and alongside gather the information whether
> > > the made call was local or global.
> > > 
> > > In case of live patching this information is furthermore used to decide
> > > whether a klp_return_helper needs to be inserted or not.
> > > CAVEAT: any frameless klp_return_helper does not play well with
> > > sibling calls! There's an emergency exit that might work, at worst
> > > it will cause an oops, but it surely avoids a lockup.
> > > At least the live patching modules on ppc64le will need to be compiled
> > > using the -fno-optimize-sibling-calls compiler flag!
> > > 
> > > Thanks go to Michael Matz and Richard Biener for reassurance about
> > > heuristics and pointers to the compiler flag.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Torsten Duwe <[email-masked]>
> > 
> > Hi Torsten,
> > 
> > Should this patch be applied over Petr Mladek's v4 ?
> 
> Yes. Just omit the changes it makes to entry_64.S and use this instead.

Thanks, I was able to successfully execute basic livepatch sample module test.

Thanks,
Kamalesh.