• Jason Baron's avatar
    livepatch: Add atomic replace · e1452b60
    Jason Baron authored
    Sometimes we would like to revert a particular fix. Currently, this
    is not easy because we want to keep all other fixes active and we
    could revert only the last applied patch.
    
    One solution would be to apply new patch that implemented all
    the reverted functions like in the original code. It would work
    as expected but there will be unnecessary redirections. In addition,
    it would also require knowing which functions need to be reverted at
    build time.
    
    Another problem is when there are many patches that touch the same
    functions. There might be dependencies between patches that are
    not enforced on the kernel side. Also it might be pretty hard to
    actually prepare the patch and ensure compatibility with the other
    patches.
    
    Atomic replace && cumulative patches:
    
    A better solution would be to create cumulative patch and say that
    it replaces all older ones.
    
    This patch adds a new "replace" flag to struct klp_patch. When it is
    enabled, a set of 'nop' klp_func will be dynamically created for all
    functions that are already being patched but that will no longer be
    modified by the new patch. They are used as a new target during
    the patch transition.
    
    The idea is to handle Nops' structures like the static ones. When
    the dynamic structures are allocated, we initialize all values that
    are normally statically defined.
    
    The only exception is "new_func" in struct klp_func. It has to point
    to the original function and the address is known only when the object
    (module) is loaded. Note that we really need to set it. The address is
    used, for example, in klp_check_stack_func().
    
    Nevertheless we still need to distinguish the dynamically allocated
    structures in some operations. For this, we add "nop" flag into
    struct klp_func and "dynamic" flag into struct klp_object. They
    need special handling in the following situations:
    
      + The structures are added into the lists of objects and functions
        immediately. In fact, the lists were created for this purpose.
    
      + The address of the original function is known only when the patched
        object (module) is loaded. Therefore it is copied later in
        klp_init_object_loaded().
    
      + The ftrace handler must not set PC to func->new_func. It would cause
        infinite loop because the address points back to the beginning of
        the original function.
    
      + The various free() functions must free the structure itself.
    
    Note that other ways to detect the dynamic structures are not considered
    safe. For example, even the statically defined struct klp_object might
    include empty funcs array. It might be there just to run some callbacks.
    
    Also note that the safe iterator must be used in the free() functions.
    Otherwise already freed structures might get accessed.
    
    Special callbacks handling:
    
    The callbacks from the replaced patches are _not_ called by intention.
    It would be pretty hard to define a reasonable semantic and implement it.
    
    It might even be counter-productive. The new patch is cumulative. It is
    supposed to include most of the changes from older patches. In most cases,
    it will not want to call pre_unpatch() post_unpatch() callbacks from
    the replaced patches. It would disable/break things for no good reasons.
    Also it should be easier to handle various scenarios in a single script
    in the new patch than think about interactions caused by running many
    scripts from older patches. Not to say that the old scripts even would
    not expect to be called in this situation.
    
    Removing replaced patches:
    
    One nice effect of the cumulative patches is that the code from the
    older patches is no longer used. Therefore the replaced patches can
    be removed. It has several advantages:
    
      + Nops' structs will no longer be necessary and might be removed.
        This would save memory, restore performance (no ftrace handler),
        allow clear view on what is really patched.
    
      + Disabling the patch will cause using the original code everywhere.
        Therefore the livepatch callbacks could handle only one scenario.
        Note that the complication is already complex enough when the patch
        gets enabled. It is currently solved by calling callbacks only from
        the new cumulative patch.
    
      + The state is clean in both the sysfs interface and lsmod. The modules
        with the replaced livepatches might even get removed from the system.
    
    Some people actually expected this behavior from the beginning. After all
    a cumulative patch is supposed to "completely" replace an existing one.
    It is like when a new version of an application replaces an older one.
    
    This patch does the first step. It removes the replaced patches from
    the list of patches. It is safe. The consistency model ensures that
    they are no longer used. By other words, each process works only with
    the structures from klp_transition_patch.
    
    The removal is done by a special function. It combines actions done by
    __disable_patch() and klp_complete_transition(). But it is a fast
    track without all the transaction-related stuff.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJason Baron <jbaron@akamai.com>
    [pmladek@suse.com: Split, reuse existing code, simplified]
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPetr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
    Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
    Cc: Jessica Yu <jeyu@kernel.org>
    Cc: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
    Cc: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
    Acked-by: default avatarMiroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
    Acked-by: default avatarJosh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
    e1452b60
core.h 1.15 KB