Re: [BUG][kprobes][vunmap?]: kprobes may cause memory corruption

From: Mathieu Desnoyers
Date: Wed Jan 28 2009 - 12:13:45 EST


* Masami Hiramatsu (mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > * Masami Hiramatsu (mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> >> Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> > Hi Masami,
> >
> > This would not surprise me if it came from bug in the new vmap()
> > implementation done in this commit :
> >
> > http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=db64fe02258f1507e13fe5212a989922323685ce
> >
> > Especially because going from vmap -> vm_map_ram makes this behavior
> > disappear.
> >
> > Looking at the commit, I notice that it delays vunmap so it's done in
> > batch to minimize locking effect. I think it would be good to create a
> > test case to try to isolate this, without any kprobes/text_poke
> > involved, which does something like this :
> >
> > load module (this is also doing vmalloc, so it might be part of the
> > problem)
> > for i (i=0; i < 400; i++) {
> > vmap()
> > vfree()
> ^^^^^ vunmap?

yep.

> > }
> > unload module
> >
> > Another interesting test would be :
> >
> > for i (i=0; i < 400; i++) {
> > vmalloc()
> > vfree()
> > }
>
> Hi Mathieu,
>
> Thank you for test ideas.
> I made both of above two tests and run it. Both test modules
> do NOT cause memory corruption...
>

OK

> > All this called in a loop. This would help isolating the "vmap" part of
> > the issue. If this test is not enough, then we should maybe try
> > something like this in a kernel module (which does what text_poke does
> > with vmalloc, more or less) in a loop :
> >
> > char somedata[PAGE_SIZE] __attribute__((aligned(PAGE_SIZE)));
> > char copydata[PAGE_SIZE] __attribute__((aligned(PAGE_SIZE)));
>
> Should both of them have PAGE_SIZE*2?
>

Yes.

> >
> > void test_vmap(void)
> > }
> > struct page *pages[2];
> > char *vaddr;
> > int i;
> >
> > for (i = 0; i < 2 * PAGE_SIZE; i++)
> > copydata[i] = somedata[i];
> > page[0] = virt_to_page(&somedata);
> > BUG_ON(!page[0]);
> > page[1] = virt_to_page(&somedata + PAGE_SIZE);
> > BUG_ON(!page[1]);
> > vaddr = vmap(pages, 2, VM_MAP, PAGE_KERNEL);
> > BUG_ON(!vaddr);
> >
> > for (i = 0; i < 2 * PAGE_SIZE; i++)
> > vaddr[i] = copydata[i] + 1;
> >
> > vunmap(vaddr);
> >
> > for (i = 0; i < 2 * PAGE_SIZE; i++)
> > BUG_ON(somedata[i] != copydata[i] + 1);
> > }
>
> Hmm, when I ran above code, it hit the last BUG_ON().
> I checked that somedata[i] didn't updated.
>

Do you hit the BUG_ON after the first loop ?

> > Given you don't seem to have hit the
> > for (i = 0; i < len; i++)
> > BUG_ON(((char *)addr)[i] != ((char *)opcode)[i]);
> > test at the end of text_poke,
>
> However, when I ran kprobe-based test, it doesn't hit the BUG_ON()
> in text_poke().
>

The variable declarations should have been 2*PAGE_SIZE, hopefully you
fixed them.

There is also a sync_core() in text_poke. It should not matter, but
maybe that could help ?

> > I suspect the write through the vmapped
> > area is correctly done, but that the problem may lay in the mm layer.
> > Maybe it's running out of pre-allocated vmap areas or something like
> > this ?
>
> I haven't seen vmalloc failure message on 2.6.29-rc2.
>

It could be because the available vmalloc space is slightly higher.
Looking into the lazy vunmap threshold would be useful.

You could also try with loop values higher than 400.

Mathieu

> Thank you again,
>
>
> --
> Masami Hiramatsu
>
> Software Engineer
> Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.
> Software Solutions Division
>
> e-mail: mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx
>

--
Mathieu Desnoyers
OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68
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