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Date:   Mon, 29 May 2023 09:37:26 +0100
From:   Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To:     Jiri Olsa <olsajiri@gmail.com>
Cc:     stable@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, bpf@vger.kernel.org,
        x86@kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>,
        Tsahee Zidenberg <tsahee@annapurnalabs.com>,
        Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>,
        Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mah=E9?= Tardy <mahe.tardy@isovalent.com>,
        linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH stable 5.4 0/8] bpf: Fix
 bpf_probe_read/bpf_probe_read_str helpers
Message-ID: <2023052947-jubilance-driven-31d8@gregkh>
References: <20230522203352.738576-1-jolsa@kernel.org>
 <2023052646-magnetize-equate-2b24@gregkh>
 <ZHOzaStC0WmTvwL9@krava>
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On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 10:02:49PM +0200, Jiri Olsa wrote:
> On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 07:54:17PM +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 10:33:44PM +0200, Jiri Olsa wrote:
> > > hi,
> > > we see broken access to user space with bpf_probe_read/bpf_probe_read_str
> > > helpers on arm64 with 5.4 kernel. The problem is that both helpers try to
> > > read user memory by calling probe_kernel_read, which seems to work on x86
> > > but fails on arm64.
> > 
> > Has this ever worked on arm64 for the 5.4 kernel tree?  If not, it's not
> > really a regression, and so, why not use a newer kernel that has this
> > new feature added to it there?
> > 
> > In other words, what requires you to use the 5.4.y tree and requires
> > feature parity across architectures?
> 
> we have a customer running ok on x86 v5.4, but arm64 is broken with
> the same bpf/user space code

Again why can they not use a newer kernel version?  What forces this
customer to be stuck with a specific kernel version that spans different
processor types?

> upgrade is an option of course, but it's not a big change and we can
> have 5.4 working on arm64 as well

For loads of other reasons, I'd recommend 5.15 or newer for arm64, so
why not use that?

> I can send out the change that will be closer to upstream changes,
> if that's a concern.. with adding the new probe helpers, which I
> guess is not a problem, because it does not change current API

You are trying to add features to a stable kernel that are not
regression fixes, which is something that we generally do not accept
into stable kernels.

thnaks,

greg k-h