Re: [PATCH v2] perf,x86: avoid missing caller address in stack traces captured in uprobe

Josh Poimboeuf
2024-07-02T23:35:56Z

On Tue, Jul 02, 2024 at 10:18:58AM -0700, Andrii Nakryiko wrote:
> When tracing user functions with uprobe functionality, it's common to
> install the probe (e.g., a BPF program) at the first instruction of the
> function. This is often going to be `push %rbp` instruction in function
> preamble, which means that within that function frame pointer hasn't
> been established yet. This leads to consistently missing an actual
> caller of the traced function, because perf_callchain_user() only
> records current IP (capturing traced function) and then following frame
> pointer chain (which would be caller's frame, containing the address of
> caller's caller).
>
> So when we have target_1 -> target_2 -> target_3 call chain and we are
> tracing an entry to target_3, captured stack trace will report
> target_1 -> target_3 call chain, which is wrong and confusing.
>
> This patch proposes a x86-64-specific heuristic to detect `push %rbp`
> (`push %ebp` on 32-bit architecture) instruction being traced. Given
> entire kernel implementation of user space stack trace capturing works
> under assumption that user space code was compiled with frame pointer
> register (%rbp/%ebp) preservation, it seems pretty reasonable to use
> this instruction as a strong indicator that this is the entry to the
> function. In that case, return address is still pointed to by %rsp/%esp,
> so we fetch it and add to stack trace before proceeding to unwind the
> rest using frame pointer-based logic.
>
> Signed-off-by: Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>

Should it also check for ENDBR64?

When compiled with -fcf-protection=branch, the first instruction of the
function will almost always be ENDBR64. I'm not sure about other
distros, but at least Fedora compiles its binaries like that.

--
Josh