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Make the structure of "Livepatch module Elf format" document similar
to the main "Livepatch" document.
Also make the structure of "(Un)patching Callbacks" document similar
to the "Shadow Variables" document.
It fixes the most visible inconsistencies of the documentation
generated from the ReST format.
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Reviewed-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Kamalesh Babulal <kamalesh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Convert livepatch documentation to ReST format. The changes
are mostly trivial, as the documents are already on a good
shape. Just a few markup changes are needed for Sphinx to
properly parse the docs.
The conversion is actually:
- add blank lines and identation in order to identify paragraphs;
- fix tables markups;
- add some lists markups;
- mark literal blocks;
- The in-file TOC becomes a comment, in order to skip it from the
output, as Sphinx already generates an index there.
- adjust title markups.
At its new index.rst, let's add a :orphan: while this is not linked to
the main index.rst file, in order to avoid build warnings.
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Kamalesh Babulal <kamalesh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
The fake signal is send automatically now. We can rely on it completely
and remove the sysfs attribute.
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
An administrator may send a fake signal to all remaining blocking tasks
of a running transition by writing to
/sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/signal attribute. Let's do it
automatically after 15 seconds. The timeout is chosen deliberately. It
gives the tasks enough time to transition themselves.
Theoretically, sending it once should be more than enough. However,
every task must get outside of a patched function to be successfully
transitioned. It could prove not to be simple and resending could be
helpful in that case.
A new workqueue job could be a cleaner solution to achieve it, but it
could also introduce deadlocks and cause more headaches with
synchronization and cancelling.
[jkosina@suse.cz: removed added newline]
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Add a few livepatch modules and simple target modules that the included
regression suite can run tests against:
- basic livepatching (multiple patches, atomic replace)
- pre/post (un)patch callbacks
- shadow variable API
Signed-off-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Tested-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Tested-by: Alice Ferrazzi <alice.ferrazzi@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
The atomic replace and cumulative patches were introduced as a more secure
way to handle dependent patches. They simplify the logic:
+ Any new cumulative patch is supposed to take over shadow variables
and changes made by callbacks from previous livepatches.
+ All replaced patches are discarded and the modules can be unloaded.
As a result, there is only one scenario when a cumulative livepatch
gets disabled.
The different handling of "normal" and cumulative patches might cause
confusion. It would make sense to keep only one mode. On the other hand,
it would be rude to enforce using the cumulative livepatches even for
trivial and independent (hot) fixes.
However, the stack of patches is not really necessary any longer.
The patch ordering was never clearly visible via the sysfs interface.
Also the "normal" patches need a lot of caution anyway.
Note that the list of enabled patches is still necessary but the ordering
is not longer enforced.
Otherwise, the code is ready to disable livepatches in an random order.
Namely, klp_check_stack_func() always looks for the function from
the livepatch that is being disabled. klp_func structures are just
removed from the related func_stack. Finally, the ftrace handlers
is removed only when the func_stack becomes empty.
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
User documentation for the atomic replace feature. It makes it easier
to maintain livepatches using so-called cumulative patches.
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Sometimes we would like to revert a particular fix. Currently, this
is not easy because we want to keep all other fixes active and we
could revert only the last applied patch.
One solution would be to apply new patch that implemented all
the reverted functions like in the original code. It would work
as expected but there will be unnecessary redirections. In addition,
it would also require knowing which functions need to be reverted at
build time.
Another problem is when there are many patches that touch the same
functions. There might be dependencies between patches that are
not enforced on the kernel side. Also it might be pretty hard to
actually prepare the patch and ensure compatibility with the other
patches.
Atomic replace && cumulative patches:
A better solution would be to create cumulative patch and say that
it replaces all older ones.
This patch adds a new "replace" flag to struct klp_patch. When it is
enabled, a set of 'nop' klp_func will be dynamically created for all
functions that are already being patched but that will no longer be
modified by the new patch. They are used as a new target during
the patch transition.
The idea is to handle Nops' structures like the static ones. When
the dynamic structures are allocated, we initialize all values that
are normally statically defined.
The only exception is "new_func" in struct klp_func. It has to point
to the original function and the address is known only when the object
(module) is loaded. Note that we really need to set it. The address is
used, for example, in klp_check_stack_func().
Nevertheless we still need to distinguish the dynamically allocated
structures in some operations. For this, we add "nop" flag into
struct klp_func and "dynamic" flag into struct klp_object. They
need special handling in the following situations:
+ The structures are added into the lists of objects and functions
immediately. In fact, the lists were created for this purpose.
+ The address of the original function is known only when the patched
object (module) is loaded. Therefore it is copied later in
klp_init_object_loaded().
+ The ftrace handler must not set PC to func->new_func. It would cause
infinite loop because the address points back to the beginning of
the original function.
+ The various free() functions must free the structure itself.
Note that other ways to detect the dynamic structures are not considered
safe. For example, even the statically defined struct klp_object might
include empty funcs array. It might be there just to run some callbacks.
Also note that the safe iterator must be used in the free() functions.
Otherwise already freed structures might get accessed.
Special callbacks handling:
The callbacks from the replaced patches are _not_ called by intention.
It would be pretty hard to define a reasonable semantic and implement it.
It might even be counter-productive. The new patch is cumulative. It is
supposed to include most of the changes from older patches. In most cases,
it will not want to call pre_unpatch() post_unpatch() callbacks from
the replaced patches. It would disable/break things for no good reasons.
Also it should be easier to handle various scenarios in a single script
in the new patch than think about interactions caused by running many
scripts from older patches. Not to say that the old scripts even would
not expect to be called in this situation.
Removing replaced patches:
One nice effect of the cumulative patches is that the code from the
older patches is no longer used. Therefore the replaced patches can
be removed. It has several advantages:
+ Nops' structs will no longer be necessary and might be removed.
This would save memory, restore performance (no ftrace handler),
allow clear view on what is really patched.
+ Disabling the patch will cause using the original code everywhere.
Therefore the livepatch callbacks could handle only one scenario.
Note that the complication is already complex enough when the patch
gets enabled. It is currently solved by calling callbacks only from
the new cumulative patch.
+ The state is clean in both the sysfs interface and lsmod. The modules
with the replaced livepatches might even get removed from the system.
Some people actually expected this behavior from the beginning. After all
a cumulative patch is supposed to "completely" replace an existing one.
It is like when a new version of an application replaces an older one.
This patch does the first step. It removes the replaced patches from
the list of patches. It is safe. The consistency model ensures that
they are no longer used. By other words, each process works only with
the structures from klp_transition_patch.
The removal is done by a special function. It combines actions done by
__disable_patch() and klp_complete_transition(). But it is a fast
track without all the transaction-related stuff.
Signed-off-by: Jason Baron <jbaron@akamai.com>
[pmladek@suse.com: Split, reuse existing code, simplified]
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Cc: Jessica Yu <jeyu@kernel.org>
Cc: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
Cc: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
The possibility to re-enable a registered patch was useful for immediate
patches where the livepatch module had to stay until the system reboot.
The improved consistency model allows to achieve the same result by
unloading and loading the livepatch module again.
Also we are going to add a feature called atomic replace. It will allow
to create a patch that would replace all already registered patches.
The aim is to handle dependent patches more securely. It will obsolete
the stack of patches that helped to handle the dependencies so far.
Then it might be unclear when a cumulative patch re-enabling is safe.
It would be complicated to support the many modes. Instead we could
actually make the API and code easier to understand.
Therefore, remove the two step public API. All the checks and init calls
are moved from klp_register_patch() to klp_enabled_patch(). Also the patch
is automatically freed, including the sysfs interface when the transition
to the disabled state is completed.
As a result, there is never a disabled patch on the top of the stack.
Therefore we do not need to check the stack in __klp_enable_patch().
And we could simplify the check in __klp_disable_patch().
Also the API and logic is much easier. It is enough to call
klp_enable_patch() in module_init() call. The patch can be disabled
by writing '0' into /sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/enabled. Then the module
can be removed once the transition finishes and sysfs interface is freed.
The only problem is how to free the structures and kobjects safely.
The operation is triggered from the sysfs interface. We could not put
the related kobject from there because it would cause lock inversion
between klp_mutex and kernfs locks, see kn->count lockdep map.
Therefore, offload the free task to a workqueue. It is perfectly fine:
+ The patch can no longer be used in the livepatch operations.
+ The module could not be removed until the free operation finishes
and module_put() is called.
+ The operation is asynchronous already when the first
klp_try_complete_transition() fails and another call
is queued with a delay.
Suggested-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Semantic changes are possible since the commit d83a7cb375
("livepatch: change to a per-task consistency model").
Also data structures can be patched since the commit 439e7271dc
("livepatch: introduce shadow variable API").
It is a high time we removed these limitations from the documentation.
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
We might need to do some actions before the shadow variable is freed.
For example, we might need to remove it from a list or free some data
that it points to.
This is already possible now. The user can get the shadow variable
by klp_shadow_get(), do the necessary actions, and then call
klp_shadow_free().
This patch allows to do it a more elegant way. The user could implement
the needed actions in a callback that is passed to klp_shadow_free()
as a parameter. The callback usually does reverse operations to
the constructor callback that can be called by klp_shadow_*alloc().
It is especially useful for klp_shadow_free_all(). There we need to do
these extra actions for each found shadow variable with the given ID.
Note that the memory used by the shadow variable itself is still released
later by rcu callback. It is needed to protect internal structures that
keep all shadow variables. But the destructor is called immediately.
The shadow variable must not be access anyway after klp_shadow_free()
is called. The user is responsible to protect this any suitable way.
Be aware that the destructor is called under klp_shadow_lock. It is
the same as for the contructor in klp_shadow_alloc().
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
The existing API allows to pass a sample data to initialize the shadow
data. It works well when the data are position independent. But it fails
miserably when we need to set a pointer to the shadow structure itself.
Unfortunately, we might need to initialize the pointer surprisingly
often because of struct list_head. It is even worse because the list
might be hidden in other common structures, for example, struct mutex,
struct wait_queue_head.
For example, this was needed to fix races in ALSA sequencer. It required
to add mutex into struct snd_seq_client. See commit b3defb791b
("ALSA: seq: Make ioctls race-free") and commit d15d662e89
("ALSA: seq: Fix racy pool initializations")
This patch makes the API more safe. A custom constructor function and data
are passed to klp_shadow_*alloc() functions instead of the sample data.
Note that ctor_data are no longer a template for shadow->data. It might
point to any data that might be necessary when the constructor is called.
Also note that the constructor is called under klp_shadow_lock. It is
an internal spin_lock that synchronizes alloc() vs. get() operations,
see klp_shadow_get_or_alloc(). On one hand, this adds a risk of ABBA
deadlocks. On the other hand, it allows to do some operations safely.
For example, we could add the new structure into an existing list.
This must be done only once when the structure is allocated.
Reported-by: Nicolai Stange <nstange@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Immediate flag has been used to disable per-task consistency and patch
all tasks immediately. It could be useful if the patch doesn't change any
function or data semantics.
However, it causes problems on its own. The consistency problem is
currently broken with respect to immediate patches.
func a
patches 1i
2i
3
When the patch 3 is applied, only 2i function is checked (by stack
checking facility). There might be a task sleeping in 1i though. Such
task is migrated to 3, because we do not check 1i in
klp_check_stack_func() at all.
Coming atomic replace feature would be easier to implement and more
reliable without immediate.
Thus, remove immediate feature completely and save us from the problems.
Note that force feature has the similar problem. However it is
considered as a last resort. If used, administrator should not apply any
new live patches and should plan for reboot into an updated kernel.
The architectures would now need to provide HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE to
fully support livepatch.
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
If a task sleeps in a set of patched functions uninterruptedly, it could
block the whole transition indefinitely. Thus it may be useful to clear
its TIF_PATCH_PENDING to allow the process to finish.
Admin can do that now by writing to force sysfs attribute in livepatch
sysfs directory. TIF_PATCH_PENDING is then cleared for all tasks and the
transition can finish successfully.
Important note! Administrator should not use this feature without a
clearance from a patch distributor. It must be checked that by doing so
the consistency model guarantees are not violated. Removal (rmmod) of
patch modules is permanently disabled when the feature is used. It
cannot be guaranteed there is no task sleeping in such module.
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Live patching consistency model is of LEAVE_PATCHED_SET and
SWITCH_THREAD. This means that all tasks in the system have to be marked
one by one as safe to call a new patched function. Safe means when a
task is not (sleeping) in a set of patched functions. That is, no
patched function is on the task's stack. Another clearly safe place is
the boundary between kernel and userspace. The patching waits for all
tasks to get outside of the patched set or to cross the boundary. The
transition is completed afterwards.
The problem is that a task can block the transition for quite a long
time, if not forever. It could sleep in a set of patched functions, for
example. Luckily we can force the task to leave the set by sending it a
fake signal, that is a signal with no data in signal pending structures
(no handler, no sign of proper signal delivered). Suspend/freezer use
this to freeze the tasks as well. The task gets TIF_SIGPENDING set and
is woken up (if it has been sleeping in the kernel before) or kicked by
rescheduling IPI (if it was running on other CPU). This causes the task
to go to kernel/userspace boundary where the signal would be handled and
the task would be marked as safe in terms of live patching.
There are tasks which are not affected by this technique though. The
fake signal is not sent to kthreads. They should be handled differently.
They can be woken up so they leave the patched set and their
TIF_PATCH_PENDING can be cleared thanks to stack checking.
For the sake of completeness, if the task is in TASK_RUNNING state but
not currently running on some CPU it doesn't get the IPI, but it would
eventually handle the signal anyway. Second, if the task runs in the
kernel (in TASK_RUNNING state) it gets the IPI, but the signal is not
handled on return from the interrupt. It would be handled on return to
the userspace in the future when the fake signal is sent again. Stack
checking deals with these cases in a better way.
If the task was sleeping in a syscall it would be woken by our fake
signal, it would check if TIF_SIGPENDING is set (by calling
signal_pending() predicate) and return ERESTART* or EINTR. Syscalls with
ERESTART* return values are restarted in case of the fake signal (see
do_signal()). EINTR is propagated back to the userspace program. This
could disturb the program, but...
* each process dealing with signals should react accordingly to EINTR
return values.
* syscalls returning EINTR happen to be quite common situation in the
system even if no fake signal is sent.
* freezer sends the fake signal and does not deal with EINTR anyhow.
Thus EINTR values are returned when the system is resumed.
The very safe marking is done in architectures' "entry" on syscall and
interrupt/exception exit paths, and in a stack checking functions of
livepatch. TIF_PATCH_PENDING is cleared and the next
recalc_sigpending() drops TIF_SIGPENDING. In connection with this, also
call klp_update_patch_state() before do_signal(), so that
recalc_sigpending() in dequeue_signal() can clear TIF_PATCH_PENDING
immediately and thus prevent a double call of do_signal().
Note that the fake signal is not sent to stopped/traced tasks. Such task
prevents the patching to finish till it continues again (is not traced
anymore).
Last, sending the fake signal is not automatic. It is done only when
admin requests it by writing 1 to signal sysfs attribute in livepatch
sysfs directory.
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org
Cc: x86@kernel.org
Acked-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au> (powerpc)
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Provide livepatch modules a klp_object (un)patching notification
mechanism. Pre and post-(un)patch callbacks allow livepatch modules to
setup or synchronize changes that would be difficult to support in only
patched-or-unpatched code contexts.
Callbacks can be registered for target module or vmlinux klp_objects,
but each implementation is klp_object specific.
- Pre-(un)patch callbacks run before any (un)patching transition
starts.
- Post-(un)patch callbacks run once an object has been (un)patched and
the klp_patch fully transitioned to its target state.
Example use cases include modification of global data and registration
of newly available services/handlers.
See Documentation/livepatch/callbacks.txt for details and
samples/livepatch/ for examples.
Signed-off-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
The description of the basic operations was a bit inconsistent
and based on older version of the patchset.
Also the size of the spinlock structure should be allocated
instead of the pointer.
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Add exported API for livepatch modules:
klp_shadow_get()
klp_shadow_alloc()
klp_shadow_get_or_alloc()
klp_shadow_free()
klp_shadow_free_all()
that implement "shadow" variables, which allow callers to associate new
shadow fields to existing data structures. This is intended to be used
by livepatch modules seeking to emulate additions to data structure
definitions.
See Documentation/livepatch/shadow-vars.txt for a summary of the new
shadow variable API, including a few common use cases.
See samples/livepatch/livepatch-shadow-* for example modules that
demonstrate shadow variables.
[jkosina@suse.cz: fix __klp_shadow_get_or_alloc() comment as spotted by
Josh]
Signed-off-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Currently we do not allow patch module to unload since there is no
method to determine if a task is still running in the patched code.
The consistency model gives us the way because when the unpatching
finishes we know that all tasks were marked as safe to call an original
function. Thus every new call to the function calls the original code
and at the same time no task can be somewhere in the patched code,
because it had to leave that code to be marked as safe.
We can safely let the patch module go after that.
Completion is used for synchronization between module removal and sysfs
infrastructure in a similar way to commit 942e443127 ("module: Fix
mod->mkobj.kobj potentially freed too early").
Note that we still do not allow the removal for immediate model, that is
no consistency model. The module refcount may increase in this case if
somebody disables and enables the patch several times. This should not
cause any harm.
With this change a call to try_module_get() is moved to
__klp_enable_patch from klp_register_patch to make module reference
counting symmetric (module_put() is in a patch disable path) and to
allow to take a new reference to a disabled module when being enabled.
Finally, we need to be very careful about possible races between
klp_unregister_patch(), kobject_put() functions and operations
on the related sysfs files.
kobject_put(&patch->kobj) must be called without klp_mutex. Otherwise,
it might be blocked by enabled_store() that needs the mutex as well.
In addition, enabled_store() must check if the patch was not
unregisted in the meantime.
There is no need to do the same for other kobject_put() callsites
at the moment. Their sysfs operations neither take the lock nor
they access any data that might be freed in the meantime.
There was an attempt to use kobjects the right way and prevent these
races by design. But it made the patch definition more complicated
and opened another can of worms. See
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1464018848-4303-1-git-send-email-pmladek@suse.com
[Thanks to Petr Mladek for improving the commit message.]
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Change livepatch to use a basic per-task consistency model. This is the
foundation which will eventually enable us to patch those ~10% of
security patches which change function or data semantics. This is the
biggest remaining piece needed to make livepatch more generally useful.
This code stems from the design proposal made by Vojtech [1] in November
2014. It's a hybrid of kGraft and kpatch: it uses kGraft's per-task
consistency and syscall barrier switching combined with kpatch's stack
trace switching. There are also a number of fallback options which make
it quite flexible.
Patches are applied on a per-task basis, when the task is deemed safe to
switch over. When a patch is enabled, livepatch enters into a
transition state where tasks are converging to the patched state.
Usually this transition state can complete in a few seconds. The same
sequence occurs when a patch is disabled, except the tasks converge from
the patched state to the unpatched state.
An interrupt handler inherits the patched state of the task it
interrupts. The same is true for forked tasks: the child inherits the
patched state of the parent.
Livepatch uses several complementary approaches to determine when it's
safe to patch tasks:
1. The first and most effective approach is stack checking of sleeping
tasks. If no affected functions are on the stack of a given task,
the task is patched. In most cases this will patch most or all of
the tasks on the first try. Otherwise it'll keep trying
periodically. This option is only available if the architecture has
reliable stacks (HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE).
2. The second approach, if needed, is kernel exit switching. A
task is switched when it returns to user space from a system call, a
user space IRQ, or a signal. It's useful in the following cases:
a) Patching I/O-bound user tasks which are sleeping on an affected
function. In this case you have to send SIGSTOP and SIGCONT to
force it to exit the kernel and be patched.
b) Patching CPU-bound user tasks. If the task is highly CPU-bound
then it will get patched the next time it gets interrupted by an
IRQ.
c) In the future it could be useful for applying patches for
architectures which don't yet have HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE. In
this case you would have to signal most of the tasks on the
system. However this isn't supported yet because there's
currently no way to patch kthreads without
HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE.
3. For idle "swapper" tasks, since they don't ever exit the kernel, they
instead have a klp_update_patch_state() call in the idle loop which
allows them to be patched before the CPU enters the idle state.
(Note there's not yet such an approach for kthreads.)
All the above approaches may be skipped by setting the 'immediate' flag
in the 'klp_patch' struct, which will disable per-task consistency and
patch all tasks immediately. This can be useful if the patch doesn't
change any function or data semantics. Note that, even with this flag
set, it's possible that some tasks may still be running with an old
version of the function, until that function returns.
There's also an 'immediate' flag in the 'klp_func' struct which allows
you to specify that certain functions in the patch can be applied
without per-task consistency. This might be useful if you want to patch
a common function like schedule(), and the function change doesn't need
consistency but the rest of the patch does.
For architectures which don't have HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE, the user
must set patch->immediate which causes all tasks to be patched
immediately. This option should be used with care, only when the patch
doesn't change any function or data semantics.
In the future, architectures which don't have HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE
may be allowed to use per-task consistency if we can come up with
another way to patch kthreads.
The /sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/transition file shows whether a patch
is in transition. Only a single patch (the topmost patch on the stack)
can be in transition at a given time. A patch can remain in transition
indefinitely, if any of the tasks are stuck in the initial patch state.
A transition can be reversed and effectively canceled by writing the
opposite value to the /sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/enabled file while
the transition is in progress. Then all the tasks will attempt to
converge back to the original patch state.
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20141107140458.GA21774@suse.cz
Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> # for the scheduler changes
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Three more DocBook template files have been converted to RST; only 21 to
go. There are various build improvements and the usual array of
documentation improvements and fixes.
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Merge tag 'docs-4.11' of git://git.lwn.net/linux
Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
"A slightly quieter cycle for documentation this time around.
Three more DocBook template files have been converted to RST; only 21
to go. There are various build improvements and the usual array of
documentation improvements and fixes"
* tag 'docs-4.11' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (44 commits)
docs / driver-api: Fix structure references in device_link.rst
PM / docs: Fix structure references in device.rst
Add a target to check broken external links in the Documentation
Documentation: Fix linux-api list typo
Documentation: DocBook/Makefile comment typo
Improve sparse documentation
Documentation: make Makefile.sphinx no-ops quieter
Documentation: DMA-ISA-LPC.txt
Documentation: input: fix path to input code definitions
docs: Remove the copyright year from conf.py
docs: Fix a warning in the Korean HOWTO.rst translation
PM / sleep / docs: Convert PM notifiers document to reST
PM / core / docs: Convert sleep states API document to reST
PM / core: Update kerneldoc comments in pm.h
doc-rst: Fix recursive make invocation from macros
doc-rst: Delete output of failed dot-SVG conversion
doc-rst: Break shell command sequences on failure
Documentation/sphinx: make targets independent of Sphinx work for HAVE_SPHINX=0
doc-rst: fixed cleandoc target when used with O=dir
Documentation/sphinx: prevent generation of .pyc files in the source tree
...
This patch fix some double words found in Documentation.
Signed-off-by: Masanari Iida <standby24x7@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
The Limitations section of the documentation describes the impossibility
to livepatch anything that is inlined to __schedule() function. This had
been true till 4.9 kernel came. Thanks to commit 0100301bfd
("sched/x86: Rewrite the switch_to() code") from Brian Gerst there is
__switch_to_asm function now (implemented in assembly) called properly
from context_switch(). RIP is thus saved on the stack and a task would
return to proper version of __schedule() et al. functions.
Of course __switch_to_asm() is not patchable for the reason described in
the section. But there is no __fentry__ call and I cannot imagine a
reason to do it anyway.
Therefore, remove the paragraphs from the section.
Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
gmame archive does not longer exist. Use the message id and
generic redirector instead.
Reported-by: John Donnelly <john.donnelly@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Document usage of arch-specific elf sections in livepatch as well
as implementation of arch-specific code.
[jkosina@suse.cz: fix wording as suggested by Petr Mladek]
Signed-off-by: Jessica Yu <jeyu@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
livepatch framework deserves some documentation, definitely.
This is an attempt to provide some basic info. I hope that
it will be useful for both LivePatch producers and also
potential developers of the framework itself.
[jkosina@suse.cz:
- incorporated feedback (grammar fixes) from
Chris J Arges <chris.j.arges@canonical.com>
- s/LivePatch/livepatch in changelog as pointed out by
Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
- incorporated part of feedback (grammar fixes / reformulations) from
Balbir Singh <bsingharora@gmail.com>
]
Acked-by: Jessica Yu <jeyu@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
