Re: [PATCH] kprobes: Enable tracing for mololithic kernel images

[Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org>]

ernel.org>, Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>, Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@profian.com>, Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com>, "Naveen N. Rao" <naveen.n.rao@linux.ibm.com>, Marco Elver <elver@google.com>, Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>, Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>, "Russell King \(Oracle\)" <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>, Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>, Alexander Egorenkov <egorenar@linux.ibm.com>, Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>, Parisc List <linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org>, Nathaniel McCallum <nathaniel@profian.com>, Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com>, "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>, "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>, Tobias Huschle <huschle@linux.ibm.com>, "Peter Zijlstra \(Intel\)" <peterz@infradead.org>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>, sparclinux <sparclinux@vger.kernel.org>, Tiezhu Yang <yangtiezhu@loongson.cn>, Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse
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Hi Jarkko,

On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 08:25:38 +0300
Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@kernel.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 08, 2022 at 10:35:42AM +0800, Guo Ren wrote:
> > .
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 8, 2022 at 8:02 AM Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@profian.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Tracing with kprobes while running a monolithic kernel is currently
> > > impossible because CONFIG_KPROBES is dependent of CONFIG_MODULES.  This
> > > dependency is a result of kprobes code using the module allocator for the
> > > trampoline code.
> > >
> > > Detaching kprobes from modules helps to squeeze down the user space,
> > > e.g. when developing new core kernel features, while still having all
> > > the nice tracing capabilities.
> > >
> > > For kernel/ and arch/*, move module_alloc() and module_memfree() to
> > > module_alloc.c, and compile as part of vmlinux when either CONFIG_MODULES
> > > or CONFIG_KPROBES is enabled.  In addition, flag kernel module specific
> > > code with CONFIG_MODULES.
> > >
> > > As the result, kprobes can be used with a monolithic kernel.
> > It's strange when MODULES is n, but vmlinux still obtains module_alloc.
> > 
> > Maybe we need a kprobe_alloc, right?
> 
> Perhaps not the best name but at least it documents the fact that
> they use the same allocator.
> 
> Few years ago I carved up something "half-way there" for kprobes,
> and I used the name text_alloc() [*].
> 
> [*] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20200724050553.1724168-1-jarkko.sakkinen@linux.intel.com/ 

Yeah, I remember that. Thank you for updating your patch!
I think the idea (split module_alloc() from CONFIG_MODULE) is good to me.
If module support maintainers think this name is not good, you may be
able to rename it as text_alloc() and make the module_alloc() as a
wrapper of it.

Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org>
for kprobe side.

Thank you,

-- 
Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org>