[PATCH] ftrace/x86: Set ftrace_stub to weak to prevent gcc from using short jumps to it

[PATCH] ftrace/x86: Set ftrace_stub to weak to prevent gcc from using short jumps to it

[Steven Rostedt]

Matt Fleming reported seeing crashes when enabling and disabling
function profiling which uses function graph tracer. Later Namhyung Kim
hit a similar issue and he found that the issue was due to the jmp to
ftrace_stub in ftrace_graph_call was only two bytes, and when it was
changed to jump to the tracing code, it overwrote the ftrace_stub that
was after it.

Masami Hiramatsu bisected this down to a binutils change:

8dcea93252a9ea7dff57e85220a719e2a5e8ab41 is the first bad commit
commit 8dcea93252a9ea7dff57e85220a719e2a5e8ab41
Author: H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri May 15 03:17:31 2015 -0700

    Add -mshared option to x86 ELF assembler
    
    This patch adds -mshared option to x86 ELF assembler.  By default,
    assembler will optimize out non-PLT relocations against defined non-weak
    global branch targets with default visibility.  The -mshared option tells
    the assembler to generate code which may go into a shared library
    where all non-weak global branch targets with default visibility can
    be preempted.  The resulting code is slightly bigger.  This option
    only affects the handling of branch instructions.

Declaring ftrace_stub as a weak call prevents gas from using two byte
jumps to it, which would be converted to a jump to the function graph
code.

Reported-by: Matt Fleming <matt@codeblueprint.co.uk>
Reported-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Tested-by: Matt Fleming <matt@codeblueprint.co.uk>
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
---
diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
index ed48a9f465f8..e13a695c3084 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
@@ -182,7 +182,8 @@ GLOBAL(ftrace_graph_call)
 	jmp ftrace_stub
 #endif
 
-GLOBAL(ftrace_stub)
+/* This is weak to keep gas from relaxing the jumps */
+WEAK(ftrace_stub)
 	retq
 END(ftrace_caller)
 

Re: [PATCH] ftrace/x86: Set ftrace_stub to weak to prevent gcc from using short jumps to it

[Steven Rostedt]

Ingo,

Did you want to take this patch through the tip tree, or do you want me
to take it?

Thanks,

-- Steve



On Mon, 16 May 2016 23:00:35 -0400
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:

> Matt Fleming reported seeing crashes when enabling and disabling
> function profiling which uses function graph tracer. Later Namhyung Kim
> hit a similar issue and he found that the issue was due to the jmp to
> ftrace_stub in ftrace_graph_call was only two bytes, and when it was
> changed to jump to the tracing code, it overwrote the ftrace_stub that
> was after it.
> 
> Masami Hiramatsu bisected this down to a binutils change:
> 
> 8dcea93252a9ea7dff57e85220a719e2a5e8ab41 is the first bad commit
> commit 8dcea93252a9ea7dff57e85220a719e2a5e8ab41
> Author: H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
> Date:   Fri May 15 03:17:31 2015 -0700
> 
>     Add -mshared option to x86 ELF assembler
>     
>     This patch adds -mshared option to x86 ELF assembler.  By default,
>     assembler will optimize out non-PLT relocations against defined non-weak
>     global branch targets with default visibility.  The -mshared option tells
>     the assembler to generate code which may go into a shared library
>     where all non-weak global branch targets with default visibility can
>     be preempted.  The resulting code is slightly bigger.  This option
>     only affects the handling of branch instructions.
> 
> Declaring ftrace_stub as a weak call prevents gas from using two byte
> jumps to it, which would be converted to a jump to the function graph
> code.
> 
> Reported-by: Matt Fleming <matt@codeblueprint.co.uk>
> Reported-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
> Tested-by: Matt Fleming <matt@codeblueprint.co.uk>
> Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
> ---
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
> index ed48a9f465f8..e13a695c3084 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
> +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
> @@ -182,7 +182,8 @@ GLOBAL(ftrace_graph_call)
>  	jmp ftrace_stub
>  #endif
>  
> -GLOBAL(ftrace_stub)
> +/* This is weak to keep gas from relaxing the jumps */
> +WEAK(ftrace_stub)
>  	retq
>  END(ftrace_caller)
>  
> 

Re: [PATCH] ftrace/x86: Set ftrace_stub to weak to prevent gcc from using short jumps to it

[Ingo Molnar]

* Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:

> 
> Ingo,
> 
> Did you want to take this patch through the tip tree, or do you want me
> to take it?

Feel free to take it!

Thanks,

	Ingo