Re: [PATCH RFC 0/5] uprobes: kill xol vma

From: Srikar Dronamraju
Date: Tue Nov 29 2011 - 05:32:32 EST


>
> On top of this series, not for inclusion yet, just to explain what
> I mean. May be someone can test it ;)
>
> This series kills xol_vma. Instead we use the per_cpu-like xol slots.
>
> This is much more simple and efficient. And this of course solves
> many problems we currently have with xol_vma.
>
> For example, we simply can not trust it. We do not know what actually
> we are going to execute in UTASK_SSTEP mode. An application can unmap
> this area and then do mmap(PROT_EXEC|PROT_WRITE, MAP_FIXED) to fool
> uprobes.
>
> The only disadvantage is that this adds a bit more arch-dependant
> code.
>
> The main question, can this work? I know very little in this area.
> And I am not sure if this can be ported to other architectures.

Nice idea. I think this will help us in implementing boosted uprobes if
tweak a bit. (i.e having a jump after the actual instruction that gets
us back to the actual instruction stream). The current method of using a
first cum-first-serve slot reservation doesnt work for booster because
we have had to clear the slot in the post processing.

I will apply your patches and test and let you know how it goes. (in a day
or two).

--
Thanks and Regards
Srikar

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