Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751705AbZDUFQF (ORCPT ); Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:16:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750811AbZDUFPy (ORCPT ); Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:15:54 -0400 Received: from ozlabs.org ([203.10.76.45]:35255 "EHLO ozlabs.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750807AbZDUFPx (ORCPT ); Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:15:53 -0400 From: Rusty Russell To: Steven Rostedt Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/5] ftrace: use module notifier for function tracer Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:45:41 +0930 User-Agent: KMail/1.11.2 (Linux/2.6.28-11-generic; KDE/4.2.2; i686; ; ) Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Ingo Molnar , Andrew Morton , Thomas Gleixner , Peter Zijlstra , Frederic Weisbecker , Tim Abbott References: <20090416021830.556671772@goodmis.org> <200904192055.04213.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200904211445.42812.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2241 Lines: 60 On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:27:35 pm Steven Rostedt wrote: > > On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Rusty Russell wrote: > > > On Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:48:31 am Steven Rostedt wrote: > > > From: Steven Rostedt > > > > > > Impact: fix and clean up > > > > > > The hooks in the module code for the function tracer must be called > > > before any of that module code runs. The function tracer hooks > > > modify the module (replacing calls to mcount to nops). If the code > > > is executed while the change occurs, then the CPU can take a GPF. > > > > > > To handle the above with a bit of paranoia, I originally implemented > > > the hooks as calls directly from the module code. > > > > > > After examining the notifier calls, it looks as though the start up > > > notify is called before any of the module's code is executed. This makes > > > the use of the notify safe with ftrace. > > > > Hi Steven, > > > > Unfortunately not: we do parse_args, which can call into the module code. > > (Though it shouldn't do anything "significant", as it won't get a chance to > > clean up if module load fails later). > > > > I think you need to do something else in general. Share the module_mutex for > > the ftrace code? The ksplice guys have a similar issue, so maybe we should > > generalize this into a "kernel_text" mutex? > > Hi Rusty, > > Thanks, for the update. I think we may still be OK. Agreed, just wanted to make sure you were aware. > Can those parse_args kick off threads? Hmm, probably. Sounds nasty to > me. Not without a bug. Imagine you have a "create_threads" module_param, someone loads the module with two args "create_threads crap". We call the create_threads parse function via parse_args, then hit the crap parameter and free the module. Oops. > The other thing is, if the parse_args code is only in "__init" then they > also will not be touched. It can be non-init for sysfs access. FWIW: Acked-by: Rusty Russell Thanks, Rusty. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/