Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753898Ab0AQOho (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:44 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753853Ab0AQOhn (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:43 -0500 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:50525 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751149Ab0AQOhm (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:42 -0500 Message-ID: <4B532093.5080600@redhat.com> Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:37:07 +0200 From: Avi Kivity User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091209 Fedora/3.0-4.fc12 Thunderbird/3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jim Keniston CC: Peter Zijlstra , Srikar Dronamraju , Ingo Molnar , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli , utrace-devel , Frederic Weisbecker , Masami Hiramatsu , Maneesh Soni , Mark Wielaard , LKML Subject: Re: [RFC] [PATCH 1/7] User Space Breakpoint Assistance Layer (UBP) References: <20100111122521.22050.3654.sendpatchset@srikar.in.ibm.com> <20100111122529.22050.32596.sendpatchset@srikar.in.ibm.com> <1263467289.4244.288.camel@laptop> <1263498366.4875.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1263546175.4244.342.camel@laptop> <1263589634.5007.34.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1263592192.4244.488.camel@laptop> <1263603503.5007.134.camel@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <1263603503.5007.134.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2312 Lines: 47 On 01/16/2010 02:58 AM, Jim Keniston wrote: > > I hear (er, read) you. Emulation may turn out to be the answer for some > architectures. But here are some things to keep in mind about the > various approaches: > > 1. Single-stepping inline is easiest: you need to know very little about > the instruction set you're probing. But it's inadequate for > multithreaded apps. > 2. Single-stepping out of line solves the multithreading issue (as do #3 > and #4), but requires more knowledge of the instruction set. (In > particular, calls, jumps, and returns need special care; as do > rip-relative instructions in x86_64.) I count 9 architectures that > support kprobes. I think most of these do SSOL. > 3. "Boosted" probes (where an appended jump instruction removes the need > for the single-step trap on many instructions) require even more > knowledge of the instruction set, and like SSOL, require XOL slots. > Right now, as far as I know, x86 is the only architecture with boosted > kprobes. > 4. Emulation removes the need for the XOL area, but requires pretty much > total knowledge of the instruction set. It's also a performance win for > architectures that can't do #3. I see kvm implemented on 4 > architectures (ia64, powerpc, s390, x86). Coincidentally, those are the > architectures to which uprobes (old uprobes, with ubp and xol bundled > in) has already been ported (though Intel hasn't been maintaining their > ia64 port). So it sort of comes down to how objectionable the XOL vma > (or page) really is. > The kvm emulator emulates only a subset of the x86 instruction set (basically mmio instructions and commonly-used page-table manipulation instructions, as well as some privileged instructions). It would take a lot of work to expand it to be completely generic; and even then it will fail if userspace uses an instruction set extension the kernel is not aware of. To me, boosted probes with a fallback to single-stepping seems to be the better option by far. -- error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function -- 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/