Re: [PATCH 7/9] bpf: Compile the BTF id whitelist data in vmlinux

Jiri Olsa
2020-05-15T14:57:51Z

On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 03:46:26PM -0700, Andrii Nakryiko wrote:
> On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 1:05 AM Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 11:29:40AM -0700, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
> >
> > SNIP
> >
> > > > diff --git a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
> > > > index d09ab4afbda4..dee91c6bf450 100755
> > > > --- a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
> > > > +++ b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
> > > > @@ -130,16 +130,26 @@ gen_btf()
> > > > info "BTF" ${2}
> > > > LLVM_OBJCOPY=${OBJCOPY} ${PAHOLE} -J ${1}
> > > >
> > > > - # Create ${2} which contains just .BTF section but no symbols. Add
> > > > + # Create object which contains just .BTF section but no symbols. Add
> > > > # SHF_ALLOC because .BTF will be part of the vmlinux image. --strip-all
> > > > # deletes all symbols including __start_BTF and __stop_BTF, which will
> > > > # be redefined in the linker script. Add 2>/dev/null to suppress GNU
> > > > # objcopy warnings: "empty loadable segment detected at ..."
> > > > ${OBJCOPY} --only-section=.BTF --set-section-flags .BTF=alloc,readonly \
> > > > - --strip-all ${1} ${2} 2>/dev/null
> > > > - # Change e_type to ET_REL so that it can be used to link final vmlinux.
> > > > - # Unlike GNU ld, lld does not allow an ET_EXEC input.
> > > > - printf '\1' | dd of=${2} conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=16 status=none
> > > > + --strip-all ${1} 2>/dev/null
> > > > +
> > > > + # Create object that contains just .BTF_whitelist_* sections generated
> > > > + # by bpfwl. Same as BTF section, BTF_whitelist_* data will be part of
> > > > + # the vmlinux image, hence SHF_ALLOC.
> > > > + whitelist=.btf.vmlinux.whitelist
> > > > +
> > > > + ${BPFWL} ${1} kernel/bpf/helpers-whitelist > ${whitelist}.c
> > > > + ${CC} -c -o ${whitelist}.o ${whitelist}.c
> > > > + ${OBJCOPY} --only-section=.BTF_whitelist* --set-section-flags .BTF=alloc,readonly \
> > > > + --strip-all ${whitelist}.o 2>/dev/null
> > > > +
> > > > + # Link BTF and BTF_whitelist objects together
> > > > + ${LD} -r -o ${2} ${1} ${whitelist}.o
> > >
> > > Thank you for working on it!
> > > Looks great to me overall. In the next rev please drop RFC tag.
> > >
> > > My only concern is this extra linking step. How many extra seconds does it add?
> >
> > I did not meassure, but I haven't noticed any noticable delay,
> > I'll add meassurements to the next post
> >
> > >
> > > Also in patch 3:
> > > + func = func__find(str);
> > > + if (func)
> > > + func->id = id;
> > > which means that if somebody mistyped the name or that kernel function
> > > got renamed there will be no warnings or errors.
> > > I think it needs to fail the build instead.
> >
> > it fails later on, when generating the array:
> >
> > if (!func->id) {
> > fprintf(stderr, "FAILED: '%s' function not found in BTF data\n",
> > func->name);
> > return -1;
> > }
> >
> > but it can clearly fail before that.. I'll change that
>
> I also means that whitelist can't contain functions that can be
> conditionally compiled out, right? I guess we can invent some naming
> convention to handle that, e.g: ?some_func will mean it's fine if we
> didn't find it?

right.. I did not think of functions which won't be compiled in
because of disabled config options, in that case build falsly fails

>
> >
> > >
> > > If additional linking step takes another 20 seconds it could be a reason
> > > to move the search to run-time.
> > > We already have that with struct bpf_func_proto->btf_id[].
> > > Whitelist could be something similar.
> > > I think this mechanism will be reused for unstable helpers and other
> > > func->btf_id mappings, so 'bpfwl' name would change eventually.
> > > It's not white list specific. It generates a mapping of names to btf_ids.
> > > Doing it at build time vs run-time is a trade off and it doesn't have
> > > an obvious answer.
> >
> > I was thinking of putting the names in __init section and generate the BTF
> > ids on kernel start, but the build time generation seemed more convenient..
> > let's see the linking times with 'real size' whitelist and we can reconsider
> >
>
> Being able to record such places where to put BTF ID in code would be
> really nice, as Alexei mentioned. There are many potential use cases
> where it would be good to have BTF IDs just put into arbitrary
> variables/arrays. This would trigger compilation error, if someone
> screws up the name, or function is renamed, or if function can be
> compiled out under some configuration. E.g., assuming some reasonable
> implementation of the macro
>
> static const u32 d_path_whitelist[] = {
> BTF_ID_FUNC(vfs_fallocate),
> #ifdef CONFIG_WHATEVER
> BTF_ID_FUNC(do_truncate),
> #endif
> };
>
> Would be nice and very explicit. Given this is not going to be sorted,
> you won't be able to use binary search, but if whitelists are
> generally small, it should be fine as is. If not, hashmap could be
> built in runtime and would be, probably, faster than binary search for
> longer sets of BTF IDs.
>
> I wonder if we can do some assembly magic with generating extra
> symbols and/or relocations to achieve this? What do you think? Is it
> doable/desirable/better?

so assuming this is doable bpfwl could be a generic tool for both
whitelist and bpf_func_proto->btf_id cases

and we would solve the issue with missing function due to disable CONFIG

and the name could change to something event more generic ;-)

sounds like good idea ;-)

I'll check and see if I can find some reasonable way for BTF_ID_FUNC

thanks,
jirka