[PATCH v20 08/11] ARM: kprobes: enable OPTPROBES for ARM 32

[tixy@linaro.org (Jon Medhurst (Tixy))]

On Fri, 2015-01-09 at 14:37 +0800, Wang Nan wrote:
> This patch introduce kprobeopt for ARM 32.
> 
> Limitations:
>  - Currently only kernel compiled with ARM ISA is supported.
> 
>  - Offset between probe point and optinsn slot must not larger than
>    32MiB. Masami Hiramatsu suggests replacing 2 words, it will make
>    things complex. Futher patch can make such optimization.
> 
> Kprobe opt on ARM is relatively simpler than kprobe opt on x86 because
> ARM instruction is always 4 bytes aligned and 4 bytes long. This patch
> replace probed instruction by a 'b', branch to trampoline code and then
> calls optimized_callback(). optimized_callback() calls opt_pre_handler()
> to execute kprobe handler. It also emulate/simulate replaced instruction.
> 
> When unregistering kprobe, the deferred manner of unoptimizer may leave
> branch instruction before optimizer is called. Different from x86_64,
> which only copy the probed insn after optprobe_template_end and
> reexecute them, this patch call singlestep to emulate/simulate the insn
> directly. Futher patch can optimize this behavior.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Wang Nan <wangnan0@huawei.com>
> Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@hitachi.com>
> Cc: Jon Medhurst (Tixy) <tixy@linaro.org>
> Reviewed-by: Jon Medhurst (Tixy) <tixy@linaro.org>
> Cc: Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@arm.linux.org.uk>
> Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
> ---

[...]

> +asm (
> +			".global optprobe_template_entry\n"
> +			"optprobe_template_entry:\n"
> +			".global optprobe_template_sub_sp\n"
> +			"optprobe_template_sub_sp:"
> +			"	sub	sp, sp, #0xff\n"
> +			"	stmia	sp, {r0 - r14} \n"
> +			".global optprobe_template_add_sp\n"
> +			"optprobe_template_add_sp:"
> +			"	add	r3, sp, #0xff\n"
> +			"	str	r3, [sp, #52]\n"
> +			"	mrs	r4, cpsr\n"
> +			"	str	r4, [sp, #64]\n"
> +			"	mov	r1, sp\n"
> +			"	ldr	r0, 1f\n"
> +			"	ldr	r2, 2f\n"
> +			/*
> +			 * AEABI requires an 8-bytes alignment stack. If
> +			 * SP % 8 != 0 (SP % 4 == 0 should be ensured),
> +			 * alloc more bytes here.
> +			 */
> +			"	and	r4, sp, #4\n"
> +			"	sub	sp, sp, r4\n"
> +#if __LINUX_ARM_ARCH__ >= 5
> +			"	blx	r2\n"
> +#else
> +			"	mov     lr, pc\n"
> +			"	bx	r2\n"

I think the BX instruction is not supported for ARMv4 chips that don't
have Thumb support (e.g. SA110), at least an old ARM ARM I have says BX
is supported on "Version 5 and above, and T variants of version 4".
Though building assabet_defconfig with kprobes enabled doesn't produce
an error for the BX instruction (!?)

To be safe I would be tempted to use "mov pc, r2" instead. Again, if you
agree, I'll change this in the patch in the branch I'm putting together.

[...]

-- 
Tixy