Re: [PATCH v2]: perf/x86: store user space frame-pointer value on a sample

From: Andy Lutomirski
Date: Mon May 21 2018 - 12:28:51 EST



> On May 21, 2018, at 9:51 AM, Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Andy,
>> On 21.05.2018 17:14, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>
>>> On May 21, 2018, at 5:44 AM, Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Peter,
>>>
>>>> On 10.05.2018 13:14, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>>>> On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 12:42:38PM +0300, Alexey Budankov wrote:
>>>>>> The Changelog needs to state that user_regs->bp is in fact valid and
>>>>>
>>>>> That actually was tested on binaries compiled without and with BP exposed
>>>>> and in the latter case proved the value of that change.
>>>>
>>>> Mostly works is not the same as 'always initialized', if there are entry
>>>> paths that do not store that register, then using the value might leak
>>>> values from the kernel stack, which would be bad.
>>>>
>>>> But like said, I think much of the kernel entry code was sanitized with
>>>> the PTI effort and I suspect things are in fact fine now, but lets wait
>>>> for Andy to confirm.
>>>
>>> It looks like, these days, all registers are saved on system calls, just
>>> like you anticipated.
>>>
>>> So BP register value might be stored into the Perf trace on a sample.
>>>
>>> Andy?
>>
>> Hmm, I thought I replied. Yes, they are indeed all saved, but Iâm not very excited about committing to doing so forever. But storing BP should be fine.
>
> Thanks for explicit confirmation regarding BP register.
> BTW, do you see any mean to prevent possible unattended regression?
> I guess it could be some compile time assertion or regression testing.

Write a selftest?

The whole perf user regs mechanism is buggy and fragile. I need to massively clean it up at some point.

>
> Thanks,
> Alexey
>
>>