Re: [PATCH] module interface improvement for kprobes

[Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@in.ibm.com>]

On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 10:22:13AM +0530, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 04:57:11PM +0100, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > {
> > > 	/* grab the module, making sure it won't get unloaded until
> > > 	 * we're done */
> > > 	const char *mod_name = "joydev";
> > > 	if (module_get_byname(mod_name, &mod) != 0)
> > > 		return 1;
> > > 
> > > 	/* Specify the address/offset where you want to insert
> > > 	 * probe.  If this were a real kprobe module, we'd "relocate"
> > > 	 * our probe address based on the load address of the module
> > > 	 * we're interested in. */
> > > 	kp.addr = (kprobe_opcode_t *) mod->module_core + 0;
> > > 
> > > 	/* All set to register with Kprobes */
> > >         register_kprobe(&kp);
> > > 	return 0;
> > > }
> > 
> > This interface is horrible.  You actual patch looks good to me, but it
> > I can't see why you would need it.  kallsyms_lookup_name deals with modules
> > transparently and you shouldn't put a probe at a relative offset into a
> > module but only at a symbol you could find with kallsys.
> > 
> > That beeing said we should probably change the kprobes interface to
> > automatically do the kallsysms name lookup for the caller.  It would simplify
> > the kprobes interface and allow us to get rid of the kallsyms_lookup_name
> > export that doesn't have a valid use except for kprobes.  With
> > that change the example kprobe would look like:
> 
> This sounds like a good idea. How about we still allow .addr atleast for
> users who know what they are doing and would want to just specify a text
> addr?
> 
> > static struct kprobe kp = {
> 	.addr		= <addr>
> 
> > 	.pre_handler	= handler_pre,
> > 	.post_handler	= handler_post,
> > 	.fault_handler	= handler_fault,
> > 	.symbol_name	= "do_fork",
> > };
> 
> The symbol_name lookup can then be done when only when .addr is non-NULL.

Duh! I meant to say lookup when .addr is NULL.

Ananth