Re: [RFC PATCH 3/4] livepatch: Add "replaceable" attribute to klp_patch

Song Liu
2026-04-06T18:11:40Z

On Mon, Apr 6, 2026 at 4:08 AM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 5:36 AM Song Liu <song@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 1:55 PM Dylan Hatch <dylanbhatch@google.com> wrote:
> > [...]
> > > > IIRC, the use case for this change is when multiple users load various
> > > > livepatch modules on the same system. I still don't believe this is the
> > > > right way to manage livepatches. That said, I won't really NACK this
> > > > if other folks think this is a useful option.
> > >
> > > In our production fleet, we apply exactly one cumulative livepatch
> > > module, and we use per-kernel build "livepatch release" branches to
> > > track the contents of these cumulative livepatches. This model has
> > > worked relatively well for us, but there are some painpoints.
> > >
> > > We are often under pressure to selectively deploy a livepatch fix to
> > > certain subpopulations of production. If the subpopulation is running
> > > the same build of everything else, this would require us to introduce
> > > another branching factor to the "livepatch release" branches --
> > > something we do not support due to the added toil and complexity.
> > >
> > > However, if we had the ability to build "off-band" livepatch modules
> > > that were marked as non-replaceable, we could support these selective
> > > patches without the additional branching factor. I will have to
> > > circulate the idea internally, but to me this seems like a very useful
> > > option to have in certain cases.
> >
> > IIUC, the plan is:
> >
> > - The regular livepatches are cumulative, have the replace flag; and
> > are replaceable.
> > - The occasional "off-band" livepatches do not have the replace flag,
> > and are not replaceable.
> >
> > With this setup, for systems with off-band livepatches loaded, we can
> > still release a cumulative livepatch to replace the previous cumulative
> > livepatch. Is this the expected use case?
>
> That matches our expected use case.

If we really want to serve use cases like this, I think we can introduce
some replace tag concept: Each livepatch will have a tag, u32 number.
Newly loaded livepatch will only replace existing livepatch with the
same tag. We can even reuse the existing "bool replace" in klp_patch,
and make it u32: replace=0 means no replace; replace > 0 are the
replace tag.

For current users of cumulative patches, all the livepatch will have the
same tag, say 1. For your use case, you can assign each user a
unique tag. Then all these users can do atomic upgrades of their
own livepatches.

We may also need to check whether two livepatches of different tags
touch the same kernel function. When that happens, the later
livepatch should fail to load.

Does this make sense?

Thanks,
Song