Re: [PATCH 1/2] arm64: module: Emit BTI veneers for cross-section calls

["Ard Biesheuvel" <ardb@kernel.org>]

On Thu, 13 Aug 2026, at 00:52, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2026 at 06:21:00PM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
>> The compiler is permitted to omit BTI landing pads from static functions
>> that never have their address taken, but are only called directly, even
>> if those calls originate from other code sections.
>> 
>> This means that calls into a module's .text section from .init.text,
>> which may need to be routed via a PLT if .text is out of direct
>> branching range, may result in BTI exceptions due to the indirect calls
>> performed by the PLT veneers. (Note that calls to .init.text from .text
>> are not allowed.)
>> 
>> The 'solution' is to emit yet another veneer - this is what the ELF
>> psABI for AArch64 mandates in this case.
>> 
>> So derive an upper bound for the number of veneers that may be needed in
>> the core module region to ensure that any call from init code that ends
>> up needing a PLT can be directed at a veneer with a BTI landing pad, and
>> allocate the additional space.
>> 
>> Then, emit these veneers as needed, i.e., only when emitting a PLT entry
>> for a call from an init code section to a normal code section in the
>> same module. In practice, this only occurs when a module's .init.text
>> happens to be allocated far away from its .text section, which might
>> happen when the initial 128M 'near' module region runs out of space
>> between allocating the core module and allocating its init region.
>> 
>> Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
>> ---
>>  arch/arm64/Kconfig                  |   2 -
>>  arch/arm64/include/asm/module.h     |  12 ++
>>  arch/arm64/include/asm/module.lds.h |   3 +
>>  arch/arm64/kernel/module-plts.c     | 128 +++++++++++++++++++-
>>  4 files changed, 138 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
>> 
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/Kconfig b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> index b3afe0688919..25fa80b5591d 100644
>> --- a/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
>> @@ -2114,8 +2114,6 @@ config ARM64_BTI_KERNEL
>>  	depends on CC_HAS_BRANCH_PROT_PAC_RET_BTI
>>  	# https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=94697
>>  	depends on !CC_IS_GCC || GCC_VERSION >= 100100
>> -	# https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=106671
>> -	depends on !CC_IS_GCC
>
> This doesn't work for livepatch though, and removing the "depends on
> !CC_IS_GCC" is a livepatch regression as it broadly increases the
> likelihood of ARM64_BTI_KERNEL (default y) getting enabled.
>
> So "livepatch broken on arm64 clang 21+" now becomes "livepatch broken 
> on arm64".
>

... when kernel mode BTI is enabled.

I have no insight into which pieces of livepatch for arm64 are actually
upstream. Is it just the tooling that is missing? In this case, though,
I think HAVE_LIVEPATCH should depend on !ARM64_BTI_KERNEL, rather than
the other way around. I can add that in v2.

> So either ARM64_BTI_KERNEL needs to depend on !LIVEPATCH (which will
> keep BTI disabled for most distros), or we need a different approach
> which uses __vmalloc_node_range() to allocate a veneer within 128MB of
> the target.  I can try to write that up.
>

Yes. Or pre-allocate some space in vmlinux for this purpose. I suppose
we might just use -fpatchable-function-entry for this, and add one
additional NOP to vmlinux for livepatch kernels, so that a landing pad
can be patched in as needed. AFAIR the ftrace code already deals with
the BTI landing pads gracefully.

> Hm, does the omitted BTI also break long intra-vmlinux branches for
> vmlinux text size > 128MB?
>
> The linker adds veneers for that case, but doesn't make them
> BTI-friendly unless GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI is set on *all*
> .o files, which is not currently happening for .S files.
>

I think we should fix that.

> And when I force that bit with "-z force-bti" on a 700MB text
> allyesconfig vmlinux with 22k linker-created veneers, it's crashes the
> GNU linker :-/
>
> Seems kernel BTI is borked all around...

allyesconfig is useful, but it is not a configuration that is expected
to boot successfully. But it certainly shouldn't crash the linker, so
this is something we should report to the binutils folks.