Subject: Re: [patch 13/26] Xen-paravirt_ops: Consistently wrap paravirt ops callsites to make them patchable

From: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:58:21 -0700

Andi Kleen wrote:
>> The idea is _NOT_ that you go look for references to the paravirt_ops
>> members structure, that would be stupid and you wouldn't be able to
>> use the most efficient addressing mode on a given cpu, you'd be
>> patching up indirect calls and crap like that.  Just say no...
>>     
>
> That wouldn't handle inlines though. At least some of the current
> paravirtops like cli/sti are critical enough to require inlining.
>   

You could special-case it in the thing handling the relocs; if you're
relocating to point to a function which you have an inline substitution,
then inline.

The bigger problem is that you don't know what registers you can
clobber.  For the pv_ops in hand-written asm, that a big pain.  The code
either has to assume the worst, or the "relocator" has to do something
more sophisticated (like look for push/pop pairs surrounding the call,
perhaps?).

    J