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Date:   Tue, 16 Apr 2019 07:55:26 -0500
From:   Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
To:     Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
Cc:     Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>,
        Kamalesh Babulal <kamalesh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        live-patching@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] livepatch: Enforce reliable stack trace as config
 dependency
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On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 01:47:30PM +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Feb 2019, Petr Mladek wrote:
> 
> > > I think I'd rather go in the opposite direction: allow the patches to be
> > > loaded.  Then they can be forced, if needed.  That enables both compile
> > > and runtime testing.  That way we don't make any backward progress,
> > > until such arches get reliable stacktraces.
> > 
> > Do you mean to convert the error into warning?
> > 
> > For example, the change below. Note that I did not mention
> > the possibility to force the transition by intention. It is risky
> > and people should not get used to it.
> > 
> > Heh, I think that this was the main reason why it was the error.
> > We did not want to get people used to forcing livepatches.
> > 
> > 
> > diff --git a/kernel/livepatch/core.c b/kernel/livepatch/core.c
> > index d1af69e9f0e3..8d9bce251516 100644
> > --- a/kernel/livepatch/core.c
> > +++ b/kernel/livepatch/core.c
> > @@ -1035,11 +1035,10 @@ int klp_enable_patch(struct klp_patch *patch)
> >  		return -ENODEV;
> >  
> >  	if (!klp_have_reliable_stack()) {
> > -		pr_err("This architecture doesn't have support for the livepatch consistency model.\n");
> > -		return -EOPNOTSUPP;
> > +		pr_warn("This architecture doesn't have support for the livepatch consistency model.\n");
> > +		pr_warn("Only one livepatch can be installed.\n");
> >  	}
> >  
> > -
> 
> This seems to have been lost.

Sorry, this must have gotten lost in my inbox - yes, something like the
above is what I had in mind.  Though instead of "one livepatch can be
installed" it might say that the patch transition may never complete.

BTW, might we want to consider adding a way to say "this patch doesn't
need the consistency model", which just applies the patch immediately
like we used to?  Like patch->simple = true?  Then we could easily
support all arches for basic patches.

> I think we should take this aproach before Miroslav is ready with 
> realiable stack traces for s390. At the same time, I'd suggest issuing a 
> proper WARN() there instead of just pr_warn(). The kernel might be in a 
> potentially funky state, so let's at least get the 'W' taint in place.

I don't think it would be in a dangerous state, because
save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() will return -ENOSYS and the patch will
remain in transition forever because the signaling doesn't work for
kthreads.  So I don't think a warning is necessary.  In fact we may want
to remove the warning in the generic version of
save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable().

-- 
Josh