Re: [PATCH v4.1 01/15] stacktrace/x86: add function for detecting reliable stack traces

Miroslav Benes
2017-02-02T14:39:05Z

On Wed, 1 Feb 2017, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:

> For live patching and possibly other use cases, a stack trace is only
> useful if it can be assured that it's completely reliable. Add a new
> save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() function to achieve that.
>
> Note that if the target task isn't the current task, and the target task
> is allowed to run, then it could be writing the stack while the unwinder
> is reading it, resulting in possible corruption. So the caller of
> save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() must ensure that the task is either
> 'current' or inactive.
>
> save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() relies on the x86 unwinder's detection
> of pt_regs on the stack. If the pt_regs are not user-mode registers
> from a syscall, then they indicate an in-kernel interrupt or exception
> (e.g. preemption or a page fault), in which case the stack is considered
> unreliable due to the nature of frame pointers.
>
> It also relies on the x86 unwinder's detection of other issues, such as:
>
> - corrupted stack data
> - stack grows the wrong way
> - stack walk doesn't reach the bottom
> - user didn't provide a large enough entries array
>
> Such issues are reported by checking unwind_error() and !unwind_done().
>
> Also add CONFIG_HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE so arch-independent code can
> determine at build time whether the function is implemented.
>
> Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>

Looks good to me.

Reviewed-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>

Miroslav