Re: [PATCH tip/master] [BUGFIX] kprobes/x86: Fix to clear TF bit in fault-on-single-stepping

From: Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli
Date: Mon Jun 13 2016 - 00:30:49 EST


On Sat, Jun 11, 2016 at 11:06:53PM +0900, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> Fix kprobe_fault_handler to clear TF (trap flag) bit of
> flags register in the case of fault fixup on single-stepping.
>
> If we put a kprobe on the instruction which can cause a
> page fault (e.g. actual mov instructions in copy_user_*),
> that fault happens on a single-stepping buffer. In this
> case, kprobes resets running instance so that the CPU can
> retry execution on the original ip address.
> However, current code forgets reset TF bit. Since this
> fault happens with TF bit set for enabling single-stepping,
> when it retries, it causes a debug exception and kprobes
> can not handle it because it already reset itself.
>
> On the most of x86-64 platform, it can be easily reproduced
> by using kprobe tracer. E.g.
>
> # cd /sys/kernel/debug/tracing
> # echo p copy_user_enhanced_fast_string+5 > kprobe_events
> # echo 1 > events/kprobes/enable
>
> And you'll see a kernel panic on do_debug(), since the debug
> trap is not handled by kprobes.
>
> To fix this problem, we just need to clear the TF bit when
> resetting running kprobe.
>
> Signed-off-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>

Good catch!

Reviewed-by: Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>