From: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
To: live-patching@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>,
Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>,
Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>, Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>,
Song Liu <song@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 4/4] objtool/klp: strip klp-induced module dependencies from livepatch modules
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:56:58 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260720145658.1103243-5-joe.lawrence@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260720145658.1103243-1-joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
The klp-diff pipeline creates weak UNDEF placeholder symbols for
cross-module references that will become klp-relocations. When modpost
runs on the linked livepatch .ko, it sees these UNDEF symbols, resolves
them via Module.symvers, and adds the providing modules to the depends=
field in .modinfo.
These dependencies are unnecessary: klp-relocations are resolved by the
livepatch infrastructure at patch-enable time, not by the module loader.
Adding hard module dependencies defeats late-module patching, since the
kernel will refuse to load the livepatch module unless all depended
modules are already present.
Fix this by having klp-post-link strip any depends= entry that is only
the result of klp-symbol (.klp.sym.<mod>.*). The check is conservative:
if any remaining SHN_UNDEF symbol matches a known export name from that
module, the dependency is kept (indicating a legitimate non-KLP
reference).
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-6
Signed-off-by: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>
---
tools/objtool/klp-post-link.c | 175 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 175 insertions(+)
diff --git a/tools/objtool/klp-post-link.c b/tools/objtool/klp-post-link.c
index 141b0a46ca52..8bdec0b38f65 100644
--- a/tools/objtool/klp-post-link.c
+++ b/tools/objtool/klp-post-link.c
@@ -19,6 +19,178 @@
#include <objtool/util.h>
#include <linux/livepatch_external.h>
+static bool modnames_match(const char *a, const char *b, size_t len)
+{
+ for (size_t i = 0; i < len; i++) {
+ char ca = a[i] == '-' ? '_' : a[i];
+ char cb = b[i] == '-' ? '_' : b[i];
+ if (ca != cb)
+ return false;
+ }
+ return true;
+}
+
+/*
+ * Extract the export name length from a KLP symbol name suffix: "<name>,<pos>"
+ */
+static size_t klp_sym_name_len(const char *name_start)
+{
+ const char *comma = strrchr(name_start, ',');
+ return comma ? (size_t)(comma - name_start) : strlen(name_start);
+}
+
+/*
+ * Check if the dependency on 'mod' is purely from KLP relocations.
+ *
+ * Returns true only if:
+ * (a) .klp.sym.<mod>.* symbols exist (the dep is KLP-related), AND
+ * (b) no remaining SHN_UNDEF symbol shares a name with any of those exports
+ * (which would indicate a non-KLP reference to the same module)
+ */
+static bool is_klp_only_dep(struct elf *elf, const char *mod)
+{
+ const char *exports[1024];
+ size_t export_lens[1024];
+ int nr_exports = 0;
+ struct symbol *sym;
+ size_t prefix_len = strlen(KLP_SYM_PREFIX);
+
+ /* Collect export names from .klp.sym.<mod>.* symbols */
+ for_each_sym(elf, sym) {
+ const char *name = sym->name;
+ const char *dot;
+
+ if (!strstarts(name, KLP_SYM_PREFIX))
+ continue;
+
+ dot = strchr(name + prefix_len, '.');
+ if (!dot)
+ continue;
+
+ if (strlen(mod) != (size_t)(dot - name - prefix_len) ||
+ !modnames_match(name + prefix_len, mod, dot - name - prefix_len))
+ continue;
+
+ if (nr_exports >= 1024) {
+ WARN("too many KLP exports for module %s, skipping dependency stripping", mod);
+ return false;
+ }
+
+ exports[nr_exports] = dot + 1;
+ export_lens[nr_exports] = klp_sym_name_len(dot + 1);
+ nr_exports++;
+ }
+
+ if (!nr_exports)
+ return false;
+
+ /*
+ * Verify no remaining UNDEF symbol matches an export name from this
+ * module. After fix_klp_relocs(), KLP placeholder symbols have been
+ * converted to SHN_LIVEPATCH. Any leftover UNDEF with a matching name
+ * indicates a legitimate non-KLP dependency.
+ */
+ for_each_sym(elf, sym) {
+ const char *name = sym->name;
+
+ if (sym->sym.st_shndx != SHN_UNDEF)
+ continue;
+ if (!name || !*name)
+ continue;
+
+ for (int i = 0; i < nr_exports; i++) {
+ if (strlen(name) == export_lens[i] &&
+ !strncmp(name, exports[i], export_lens[i]))
+ return false;
+ }
+ }
+
+ return true;
+}
+
+/*
+ * Remove modules from .modinfo depends= that are only referenced via KLP
+ * relocations. These dependencies are an artifact of the placeholder symbols
+ * created by klp-diff for the linker/objtool and should not constrain module
+ * load ordering (which would break late-module patching).
+ */
+static int fix_modinfo_depends(struct elf *elf)
+{
+ struct section *sec;
+ char *data, *data_end, *depends = NULL;
+ char *new_depends, *p;
+ char *tok, *save;
+ char *dep_val, *dep_copy;
+ size_t old_entry_len, new_entry_len;
+
+ sec = find_section_by_name(elf, ".modinfo");
+ if (!sec || !sec->data || !sec->data->d_buf)
+ return 0;
+
+ data = sec->data->d_buf;
+ data_end = data + sec->data->d_size;
+
+ for (char *s = data; s < data_end; s += strlen(s) + 1) {
+ if (strstarts(s, "depends=")) {
+ depends = s;
+ break;
+ }
+ }
+
+ if (!depends)
+ return 0;
+
+ dep_val = depends + strlen("depends=");
+ if (!*dep_val)
+ return 0;
+
+ new_depends = strdup(dep_val);
+ if (!new_depends) {
+ ERROR_GLIBC("strdup");
+ return -1;
+ }
+
+ dep_copy = strdup(dep_val);
+ if (!dep_copy) {
+ ERROR_GLIBC("strdup");
+ free(new_depends);
+ return -1;
+ }
+
+ p = new_depends;
+ *p = '\0';
+
+ tok = strtok_r(dep_copy, ",", &save);
+ while (tok) {
+ if (!is_klp_only_dep(elf, tok)) {
+ if (p != new_depends)
+ *p++ = ',';
+ strcpy(p, tok);
+ p += strlen(tok);
+ }
+ tok = strtok_r(NULL, ",", &save);
+ }
+
+ old_entry_len = strlen(depends) + 1;
+ new_entry_len = strlen("depends=") + strlen(new_depends) + 1;
+
+ if (strcmp(dep_val, new_depends) && new_entry_len <= old_entry_len) {
+ snprintf(depends, old_entry_len, "depends=%s", new_depends);
+ memset(depends + new_entry_len, '\0',
+ old_entry_len - new_entry_len);
+ mark_sec_changed(elf, sec, true);
+ } else if (new_entry_len > old_entry_len) {
+ ERROR("new depends= string exceeds original size (shouldn't happen)");
+ free(dep_copy);
+ free(new_depends);
+ return -1;
+ }
+
+ free(dep_copy);
+ free(new_depends);
+ return 0;
+}
+
static int fix_klp_relocs(struct elf *elf)
{
struct section *symtab, *klp_relocs;
@@ -163,6 +335,9 @@ int cmd_klp_post_link(int argc, const char **argv)
if (fix_klp_relocs(elf))
return -1;
+ if (fix_modinfo_depends(elf))
+ return -1;
+
if (elf_write(elf))
return -1;
--
2.54.0
prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-07-20 14:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-07-20 14:56 [PATCH 0/4] klp-build: klp-relocation fixups Joe Lawrence
2026-07-20 14:56 ` [PATCH 1/4] objtool/klp: use patched module name for klp-relocation section naming Joe Lawrence
2026-07-20 14:56 ` [PATCH 2/4] objtool/klp: allow new references to module exports Joe Lawrence
2026-07-20 14:56 ` [PATCH 3/4] objtool/klp: reject new cross-module references without existing dependency Joe Lawrence
2026-07-20 14:56 ` Joe Lawrence [this message]
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