ftrace: nmi safe code modification

Impact: fix crashes that can occur in NMI handlers, if their code is modified

Modifying code is something that needs special care. On SMP boxes,
if code that is being modified is also being executed on another CPU,
that CPU will have undefined results.

The dynamic ftrace uses kstop_machine to make the system act like a
uniprocessor system. But this does not address NMIs, that can still
run on other CPUs.

One approach to handle this is to make all code that are used by NMIs
not be traced. But NMIs can call notifiers that spread throughout the
kernel and this will be very hard to maintain, and the chance of missing
a function is very high.

The approach that this patch takes is to have the NMIs modify the code
if the modification is taking place. The way this works is that just
writing to code executing on another CPU is not harmful if what is
written is the same as what exists.

Two buffers are used: an IP buffer and a "code" buffer.

The steps that the patcher takes are:

 1) Put in the instruction pointer into the IP buffer
    and the new code into the "code" buffer.
 2) Set a flag that says we are modifying code
 3) Wait for any running NMIs to finish.
 4) Write the code
 5) clear the flag.
 6) Wait for any running NMIs to finish.

If an NMI is executed, it will also write the pending code.
Multiple writes are OK, because what is being written is the same.
Then the patcher must wait for all running NMIs to finish before
going to the next line that must be patched.

This is basically the RCU approach to code modification.

Thanks to Ingo Molnar for suggesting the idea, and to Arjan van de Ven
for his guidence on what is safe and what is not.

Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

1 files changed, 106 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/ftrace.c b/arch/x86/kernel/ftrace.c
index 50ea0ac8c9bf..fe5f859130b5 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/ftrace.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/ftrace.c
@@ -56,6 +56,111 @@ unsigned char *ftrace_call_replace(unsigned long ip, unsigned long addr)
         return calc.code;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Modifying code must take extra care. On an SMP machine, if
+ * the code being modified is also being executed on another CPU
+ * that CPU will have undefined results and possibly take a GPF.
+ * We use kstop_machine to stop other CPUS from exectuing code.
+ * But this does not stop NMIs from happening. We still need
+ * to protect against that. We separate out the modification of
+ * the code to take care of this.
+ *
+ * Two buffers are added: An IP buffer and a "code" buffer.
+ *
+ * 1) Put in the instruction pointer into the IP buffer
+ *    and the new code into the "code" buffer.
+ * 2) Set a flag that says we are modifying code
+ * 3) Wait for any running NMIs to finish.
+ * 4) Write the code
+ * 5) clear the flag.
+ * 6) Wait for any running NMIs to finish.
+ *
+ * If an NMI is executed, the first thing it does is to call
+ * "ftrace_nmi_enter". This will check if the flag is set to write
+ * and if it is, it will write what is in the IP and "code" buffers.
+ *
+ * The trick is, it does not matter if everyone is writing the same
+ * content to the code location. Also, if a CPU is executing code
+ * it is OK to write to that code location if the contents being written
+ * are the same as what exists.
+ */
+
+static atomic_t in_nmi;
+static int mod_code_status;
+static int mod_code_write;
+static void *mod_code_ip;
+static void *mod_code_newcode;
+
+static void ftrace_mod_code(void)
+{
+        /*
+         * Yes, more than one CPU process can be writing to mod_code_status.
+         *    (and the code itself)
+         * But if one were to fail, then they all should, and if one were
+         * to succeed, then they all should.
+         */
+        mod_code_status = probe_kernel_write(mod_code_ip, mod_code_newcode,
+                                             MCOUNT_INSN_SIZE);
+
+}
+
+void ftrace_nmi_enter(void)
+{
+        atomic_inc(&in_nmi);
+        /* Must have in_nmi seen before reading write flag */
+        smp_mb();
+        if (mod_code_write)
+                ftrace_mod_code();
+}
+
+void ftrace_nmi_exit(void)
+{
+        /* Finish all executions before clearing in_nmi */
+        smp_wmb();
+        atomic_dec(&in_nmi);
+}
+
+static void wait_for_nmi(void)
+{
+        while (atomic_read(&in_nmi))
+                cpu_relax();
+}
+
+static int
+do_ftrace_mod_code(unsigned long ip, void *new_code)
+{
+        mod_code_ip = (void *)ip;
+        mod_code_newcode = new_code;
+
+        /* The buffers need to be visible before we let NMIs write them */
+        smp_wmb();
+
+        mod_code_write = 1;
+
+        /* Make sure write bit is visible before we wait on NMIs */
+        smp_mb();
+
+        wait_for_nmi();
+
+        /* Make sure all running NMIs have finished before we write the code */
+        smp_mb();
+
+        ftrace_mod_code();
+
+        /* Make sure the write happens before clearing the bit */
+        smp_wmb();
+
+        mod_code_write = 0;
+
+        /* make sure NMIs see the cleared bit */
+        smp_mb();
+
+        wait_for_nmi();
+
+        return mod_code_status;
+}
+
+
 int
 ftrace_modify_code(unsigned long ip, unsigned char *old_code,
                    unsigned char *new_code)
@@ -81,7 +186,7 @@ ftrace_modify_code(unsigned long ip, unsigned char *old_code,
                 return -EINVAL;
 
         /* replace the text with the new text */
-        if (probe_kernel_write((void *)ip, new_code, MCOUNT_INSN_SIZE))
+        if (do_ftrace_mod_code(ip, new_code))
                 return -EPERM;
 
         sync_core();