Re: [RFC][PATCH] x86: make text_poke() atomic

Ingo Molnar
2009-03-03T00:23:20Z

* Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@redhat.com> wrote:

>
>
> Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >>>>> So perhaps another approach to (re-)consider would be to go back
> >>>>> to atomic fixmaps here. It spends 3 slots but that's no big
> >>>>> deal.
> >>>> Oh, it's a good idea! fixmaps must make it simpler.
> >>>>
> >>>>> In exchange it will be conceptually simpler, and will also scale
> >>>>> much better than a global spinlock. What do you think?
> >>>> I think even if I use fixmaps, we have to use a spinlock to protect
> >>>> the fixmap area from other threads...
> >>> that's why i suggested to use an atomic-kmap, not a fixmap.
> >> Even if the mapping is atomic, text_poke() has to protect pte
> >> from other text_poke()s while changing code.
> >> AFAIK, atomic-kmap itself doesn't ensure that, does it?
> >
> > Well, but text_poke() is not a serializing API to begin with.
> > It's normally used in code patching sequences when we 'know'
> > that there cannot be similar parallel activities. The kprobes
> > usage of text_poke() looks unsafe - and that needs to be fixed.
>
> Oh, kprobes already prohibited parallel arming/disarming
> by using kprobe_mutex. :-)

yeah, but still the API is somewhat unsafe.

In any case, you also answered your own question:

> >> Even if the mapping is atomic, text_poke() has to protect pte
> >> from other text_poke()s while changing code.
> >> AFAIK, atomic-kmap itself doesn't ensure that, does it?

kprobe_mutex does that.

Ingo