From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=3.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SIGNED_OFF_BY,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLOCKED autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55CA3C43381 for ; Mon, 4 Mar 2019 22:49:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 289642070B for ; Mon, 4 Mar 2019 22:49:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726660AbfCDWtB (ORCPT ); Mon, 4 Mar 2019 17:49:01 -0500 Received: from usa-sjc-mx-foss1.foss.arm.com ([217.140.101.70]:41120 "EHLO foss.arm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726470AbfCDWtB (ORCPT ); Mon, 4 Mar 2019 17:49:01 -0500 Received: from usa-sjc-imap-foss1.foss.arm.com (unknown [10.72.51.249]) by usa-sjc-mx-foss1.foss.arm.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 273D3EBD; Mon, 4 Mar 2019 14:49:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from [0.0.0.0] (e107985-lin.cambridge.arm.com [10.1.194.38]) by usa-sjc-imap-foss1.foss.arm.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 22B923F706; Mon, 4 Mar 2019 14:48:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 1/2] Provide in-kernel headers for making it easy to extend the kernel To: "Joel Fernandes (Google)" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: Andrew Morton , ast@kernel.org, atishp04@gmail.com, dancol@google.com, Dan Williams , gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, Guenter Roeck , Jonathan Corbet , karim.yaghmour@opersys.com, Kees Cook , kernel-team@android.com, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org, linux-trace-devel@vger.kernel.org, Manoj Rao , Masahiro Yamada , mhiramat@kernel.org, qais.yousef@arm.com, rdunlap@infradead.org, rostedt@goodmis.org, Shuah Khan , yhs@fb.com References: <20190301160856.129678-1-joel@joelfernandes.org> From: Dietmar Eggemann Message-ID: <934dc2dc-18b6-bc7c-9845-dac0577f7b47@arm.com> Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 23:48:52 +0100 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20190301160856.129678-1-joel@joelfernandes.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-GB Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-trace-devel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-trace-devel@vger.kernel.org On 3/1/19 5:08 PM, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote: > Introduce in-kernel headers and other artifacts which are made available > as an archive through proc (/proc/kheaders.tar.xz file). This archive makes > it possible to build kernel modules, run eBPF programs, and other > tracing programs that need to extend the kernel for tracing purposes > without any dependency on the file system having headers and build > artifacts. > > On Android and embedded systems, it is common to switch kernels but not > have kernel headers available on the file system. Raw kernel headers > also cannot be copied into the filesystem like they can be on other > distros, due to licensing and other issues. There's no linux-headers > package on Android. Further once a different kernel is booted, any > headers stored on the file system will no longer be useful. By storing > the headers as a compressed archive within the kernel, we can avoid these > issues that have been a hindrance for a long time. > > The feature is also buildable as a module just in case the user desires > it not being part of the kernel image. This makes it possible to load > and unload the headers on demand. A tracing program, or a kernel module > builder can load the module, do its operations, and then unload the > module to save kernel memory. The total memory needed is 3.8MB. > > The code to read the headers is based on /proc/config.gz code and uses > the same technique to embed the headers. > > To build a module, the below steps have been tested on an x86 machine: > modprobe kheaders > rm -rf $HOME/headers > mkdir -p $HOME/headers > tar -xvf /proc/kheaders.tar.xz -C $HOME/headers >/dev/null > cd my-kernel-module > make -C $HOME/headers M=$(pwd) modules > rmmod kheaders > > Additional notes: > (1) external modules must be built on the same arch as the host that > built vmlinux. This can be done either in a qemu emulated chroot on the > target, or natively. This is due to host arch dependency of kernel > scripts. > > (2) > A limitation of module building with this is, since Module.symvers is > not available in the archive due to a cyclic dependency with building of > the archive into the kernel or module binaries, the modules built using > the archive will not contain symbol versioning (modversion). This is > usually not an issue since the idea of this patch is to build a kernel > module on the fly and load it into the same kernel. An appropriate > warning is already printed by the kernel to alert the user of modules > not having modversions when built using the archive. For building with > modversions, the user can use traditional header packages. For our > tracing usecases, we build modules on the fly with this so it is not a > concern. > > (3) I have left IKHD_ST and IKHD_ED markers as is to facilitate > future patches that would extract the headers from a kernel or module > image. > > Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) > --- > > Changes since v3: > - Blank tar was being generated because of a one line I > forgot to push. It is updated now. > - Added module.lds since arm64 needs it to build modules. Tested on x86 with eBPF scripts and exporting an alternative BCC_KERNEL_SOURCE. Tested-by: Dietmar Eggemann