Re: [PATCH v3 0/2] arm64: livepatch: Enable livepatch without sframe

[Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>]

On Thu 2025-03-20 10:15:57, Song Liu wrote:
> There are recent efforts to enable livepatch for arm64, with sframe [1] or
> without sframe [2]. This set tries to enable livepatch without sframe. Some
> of the code, however, are from [1].
> 
> Although the sframe implementation is more promising in longer term, it
> suffers from the following issues:
> 
>   1. sframe is not yet supported in llvm;
>   2. There is still bug in binutil [3], so that we cannot yet use sframe
>      with gcc;
>   3. sframe unwinder hasn't been fully verified in the kernel.
> 
> On the other hand, arm64 processors have become more and more important in
> the data center world. Therefore, it is getting critical to support
> livepatching of arm64 kernels.
> 
> With recent change in arm64 unwinder [4], it is possible to reliably
> livepatch arm64 kernels without sframe. This is because we do not need
> arch_stack_walk_reliable() to get reliable stack trace in all scenarios.
> Instead, we only need arch_stack_walk_reliable() to detect when the
> stack trace is not reliable, then the livepatch logic can retry the patch
> transition at a later time.
> 
> Given the increasing need of livepatching, and relatively long time before
> sframe is fully ready (for both gcc and clang), we would like to enable
> livepatch without sframe.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/live-patching/20250127213310.2496133-1-wnliu@google.com/
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/live-patching/20250129232936.1795412-1-song@kernel.org/
> [3] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=32589
> [4] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20241017092538.1859841-1-mark.rutland@arm.com/

Hi, I am sorry but I haven't found time to look at this in time before
the merge window. Is it acceptable to postpone this change to 6.16,
please?

Best Regards,
Petr