Re: [PATCH v5 0/2] kprobes: improve error handling when arming/disarming kprobes

From: Masami Hiramatsu
Date: Fri Jan 19 2018 - 02:06:27 EST


Hi Ingo,

Could you pick this to tip tree?

Thank you,

On Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:51:22 +0100
Jessica Yu <jeyu@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This patchset attempts to improve error handling when arming or disarming
> ftrace-based kprobes. The current behavior is to simply WARN when ftrace
> (un-)registration fails, without propagating the error code. This can lead
> to confusing situations where, for example, register_kprobe()/enable_kprobe()
> would return 0 indicating success even if arming via ftrace had failed. In
> this scenario we'd end up with a non-functioning kprobe even though kprobe
> registration (or enablement) returned success. In this patchset, we take
> errors from ftrace into account and propagate the error when we cannot arm
> or disarm a kprobe.
>
> Below is an example that illustrates the problem using livepatch and
> systemtap (which uses kprobes underneath). Both livepatch and kprobes use
> ftrace ops with the IPMODIFY flag set, so registration at the same
> function entry is limited to only one ftrace user.
>
> Before
> ------
> # modprobe livepatch-sample # patches cmdline_proc_show, ftrace ops has IPMODIFY set
> # stap -e 'probe kernel.function("cmdline_proc_show").call { printf ("cmdline_proc_show\n"); }'
>
> .. (nothing prints after reading /proc/cmdline) ..
>
> The systemtap handler doesn't execute due to a kprobe arming failure caused
> by a ftrace IPMODIFY conflict with livepatch, and there isn't an obvious
> indication of error from systemtap (because register_kprobe() returned
> success) unless the user inspects dmesg.
>
> After
> -----
> # modprobe livepatch-sample
> # stap -e 'probe kernel.function("cmdline_proc_show").call { printf ("cmdline_proc_show\n"); }'
> WARNING: probe kernel.function("cmdline_proc_show@/home/jeyu/work/linux-next/fs/proc/cmdline.c:6").call (address 0xffffffffa82fe910) registration error (rc -16)
>
> Although the systemtap handler doesn't execute (as it shouldn't), the
> ftrace error is propagated and now systemtap prints a visible error message
> stating that (kprobe) registration had failed (because register_kprobe()
> returned an error), along with the propagated error code.
>
> This patchset was based on Petr Mladek's original patchset (patches 2 and 3)
> back in 2015, which improved kprobes error handling, found here:
>
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/2/26/452
>
> However, further work on this had been paused since then and the patches
> were not upstreamed.
>
> This patchset has been lightly sanity-tested (on linux-next) with kprobes,
> kretprobes, and optimized kprobes. It passes the kprobes smoke test, but
> more testing is greatly appreciated.
>
> Changes from v4:
> - Switch from WARN() to pr_debug() in arm_kprobe_ftrace() so the stack
> dumps don't pollute dmesg, as IPMODIFY conflicts can occur in normal usage
> - Added Masami's ack to the first patch
>
> Changes from v3:
> - Have (dis)arm_kprobe_ftrace() return -ENODEV instead of 0 in case of
> !CONFIG_KPROBES_ON_FTRACE
> - Add total count of all probes tried in (dis)arm_all_kprobes()
>
> Changes from v2:
> - Add missing synchronize rcu in register_aggr_kprobe()
> - s/kprobes/probes/ on error message in (dis)arm_all_kprobes()
>
> Changes from v1:
> - Don't arm the kprobe before adding it to the kprobe table, otherwise
> we'll temporarily see a stray breakpoint.
> - Remove kprobe from the kprobe_table and call synchronize_sched() if
> arming during register_kprobe() fails.
> - add Masami's ack on the 2nd patch (unchanged from v1)
>
> ---
> Jessica Yu (2):
> kprobes: propagate error from arm_kprobe_ftrace()
> kprobes: propagate error from disarm_kprobe_ftrace()
>
> kernel/kprobes.c | 178 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------
> 1 file changed, 128 insertions(+), 50 deletions(-)
>
> --
> 2.13.6
>


--
Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>