Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] kretprobe: produce sane stack traces

[Steven Rostedt]

On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 13:30:21 -0400
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> What I was thinking was to store a count and the functions to be called:
> 
> 
> 	[original_return_address]
> 	[function_A]
> 	[function_B]
> 	[function_C]
> 	[ 3 ]
> 
> Then the trampoline that processes the return codes for ftrace (and
> kretprobes and everyone else) can simply do:
> 
> 	count = pop_shadow_stack();
> 	for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
> 		func = pop_shadow_stack();
> 		func(...);
> 	}
> 	return_address = pop_shadow_stack();
> 
> That way we only need to register a function to the return handler and
> it will be called, without worrying about making trampolines. There
> will just be a single trampoline that handles all the work.

And since the most common case is a single function to call, instead of
using a count, we can take advantage that kernel functions are negative
numbers and do:

	[original_return_address]
	[function_A]

	----

	long count;

	count = pop_shadow_stack();
	if (count < 0) {
		func = (void *)count;
		func();
	} else {
		for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
			[...]

The unwinder will just need to know how to handle all this :-)

-- Steve