tracing, Text Edit Lock - Architecture Independent Code

This is an architecture independant synchronization around kernel text
modifications through use of a global mutex.

A mutex has been chosen so that kprobes, the main user of this, can sleep
during memory allocation between the memory read of the instructions it
must replace and the memory write of the breakpoint.

Other user of this interface: immediate values.

Paravirt and alternatives are always done when SMP is inactive, so there
is no need to use locks.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
LKML-Reference: <49B142D8.7020601@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

2 files changed, 16 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/memory.h b/include/linux/memory.h
index 3fdc10806d31..86a6c0f0518d 100644
--- a/include/linux/memory.h
+++ b/include/linux/memory.h
@@ -99,4 +99,10 @@ enum mem_add_context { BOOT, HOTPLUG };
 #define hotplug_memory_notifier(fn, pri) do { } while (0)
 #endif
 
+/*
+ * Kernel text modification mutex, used for code patching. Users of this lock
+ * can sleep.
+ */
+extern struct mutex text_mutex;
+
 #endif /* _LINUX_MEMORY_H_ */
diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
index baa999e87cd2..05fab3bc5b4b 100644
--- a/mm/memory.c
+++ b/mm/memory.c
@@ -48,6 +48,8 @@
 #include <linux/rmap.h>
 #include <linux/module.h>
 #include <linux/delayacct.h>
+#include <linux/kprobes.h>
+#include <linux/mutex.h>
 #include <linux/init.h>
 #include <linux/writeback.h>
 #include <linux/memcontrol.h>
@@ -99,6 +101,14 @@ int randomize_va_space __read_mostly =
                                         2;
 #endif
 
+/*
+ * mutex protecting text section modification (dynamic code patching).
+ * some users need to sleep (allocating memory...) while they hold this lock.
+ *
+ * NOT exported to modules - patching kernel text is a really delicate matter.
+ */
+DEFINE_MUTEX(text_mutex);
+
 static int __init disable_randmaps(char *s)
 {
         randomize_va_space = 0;