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

Joe Lawrence
2026-04-06T21:12:23Z

On Mon, Apr 06, 2026 at 11:11:27AM -0700, Song Liu wrote:
> 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?
>

I haven't been following the thread carefully, but could the Livepatch
system state API (see Documentation/livepatch/system-state.rst) be
leveraged somehow instead of adding further replace semantics?

--
Joe