user/sven/linux.git/Documentation/livepatch, branch v5.2.2

docs/livepatch: Unify style of livepatch documentation in the ReST format

2019-05-07T22:06:28Z

Make the structure of "Livepatch module Elf format" document similar to the main "Livepatch" document. Also make the structure of "(Un)patching Callbacks" document similar to the "Shadow Variables" document. It fixes the most visible inconsistencies of the documentation generated from the ReST format. Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Joe Lawrence Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Reviewed-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab Reviewed-by: Kamalesh Babulal Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet

docs: livepatch: convert docs to ReST and rename to *.rst

2019-05-07T22:05:49Z

Convert livepatch documentation to ReST format. The changes are mostly trivial, as the documents are already on a good shape. Just a few markup changes are needed for Sphinx to properly parse the docs. The conversion is actually: - add blank lines and identation in order to identify paragraphs; - fix tables markups; - add some lists markups; - mark literal blocks; - The in-file TOC becomes a comment, in order to skip it from the output, as Sphinx already generates an index there. - adjust title markups. At its new index.rst, let's add a :orphan: while this is not linked to the main index.rst file, in order to avoid build warnings. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Acked-by: Joe Lawrence Reviewed-by: Kamalesh Babulal Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet

livepatch: Remove signal sysfs attribute

2019-01-16T21:09:33Z

The fake signal is send automatically now. We can rely on it completely and remove the sysfs attribute. Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Send a fake signal periodically

2019-01-16T21:09:09Z

An administrator may send a fake signal to all remaining blocking tasks of a running transition by writing to /sys/kernel/livepatch//signal attribute. Let's do it automatically after 15 seconds. The timeout is chosen deliberately. It gives the tasks enough time to transition themselves. Theoretically, sending it once should be more than enough. However, every task must get outside of a patched function to be successfully transitioned. It could prove not to be simple and resending could be helpful in that case. A new workqueue job could be a cleaner solution to achieve it, but it could also introduce deadlocks and cause more headaches with synchronization and cancelling. [jkosina@suse.cz: removed added newline] Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

selftests/livepatch: introduce tests

2019-01-11T19:51:24Z

Add a few livepatch modules and simple target modules that the included regression suite can run tests against: - basic livepatching (multiple patches, atomic replace) - pre/post (un)patch callbacks - shadow variable API Signed-off-by: Joe Lawrence Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Tested-by: Miroslav Benes Tested-by: Alice Ferrazzi Acked-by: Joe Lawrence Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Remove ordering (stacking) of the livepatches

2019-01-11T19:51:24Z

The atomic replace and cumulative patches were introduced as a more secure way to handle dependent patches. They simplify the logic: + Any new cumulative patch is supposed to take over shadow variables and changes made by callbacks from previous livepatches. + All replaced patches are discarded and the modules can be unloaded. As a result, there is only one scenario when a cumulative livepatch gets disabled. The different handling of "normal" and cumulative patches might cause confusion. It would make sense to keep only one mode. On the other hand, it would be rude to enforce using the cumulative livepatches even for trivial and independent (hot) fixes. However, the stack of patches is not really necessary any longer. The patch ordering was never clearly visible via the sysfs interface. Also the "normal" patches need a lot of caution anyway. Note that the list of enabled patches is still necessary but the ordering is not longer enforced. Otherwise, the code is ready to disable livepatches in an random order. Namely, klp_check_stack_func() always looks for the function from the livepatch that is being disabled. klp_func structures are just removed from the related func_stack. Finally, the ftrace handlers is removed only when the func_stack becomes empty. Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Atomic replace and cumulative patches documentation

2019-01-11T19:51:24Z

User documentation for the atomic replace feature. It makes it easier to maintain livepatches using so-called cumulative patches. Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Joe Lawrence Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Add atomic replace

2019-01-11T19:51:24Z

Sometimes we would like to revert a particular fix. Currently, this is not easy because we want to keep all other fixes active and we could revert only the last applied patch. One solution would be to apply new patch that implemented all the reverted functions like in the original code. It would work as expected but there will be unnecessary redirections. In addition, it would also require knowing which functions need to be reverted at build time. Another problem is when there are many patches that touch the same functions. There might be dependencies between patches that are not enforced on the kernel side. Also it might be pretty hard to actually prepare the patch and ensure compatibility with the other patches. Atomic replace && cumulative patches: A better solution would be to create cumulative patch and say that it replaces all older ones. This patch adds a new "replace" flag to struct klp_patch. When it is enabled, a set of 'nop' klp_func will be dynamically created for all functions that are already being patched but that will no longer be modified by the new patch. They are used as a new target during the patch transition. The idea is to handle Nops' structures like the static ones. When the dynamic structures are allocated, we initialize all values that are normally statically defined. The only exception is "new_func" in struct klp_func. It has to point to the original function and the address is known only when the object (module) is loaded. Note that we really need to set it. The address is used, for example, in klp_check_stack_func(). Nevertheless we still need to distinguish the dynamically allocated structures in some operations. For this, we add "nop" flag into struct klp_func and "dynamic" flag into struct klp_object. They need special handling in the following situations: + The structures are added into the lists of objects and functions immediately. In fact, the lists were created for this purpose. + The address of the original function is known only when the patched object (module) is loaded. Therefore it is copied later in klp_init_object_loaded(). + The ftrace handler must not set PC to func->new_func. It would cause infinite loop because the address points back to the beginning of the original function. + The various free() functions must free the structure itself. Note that other ways to detect the dynamic structures are not considered safe. For example, even the statically defined struct klp_object might include empty funcs array. It might be there just to run some callbacks. Also note that the safe iterator must be used in the free() functions. Otherwise already freed structures might get accessed. Special callbacks handling: The callbacks from the replaced patches are _not_ called by intention. It would be pretty hard to define a reasonable semantic and implement it. It might even be counter-productive. The new patch is cumulative. It is supposed to include most of the changes from older patches. In most cases, it will not want to call pre_unpatch() post_unpatch() callbacks from the replaced patches. It would disable/break things for no good reasons. Also it should be easier to handle various scenarios in a single script in the new patch than think about interactions caused by running many scripts from older patches. Not to say that the old scripts even would not expect to be called in this situation. Removing replaced patches: One nice effect of the cumulative patches is that the code from the older patches is no longer used. Therefore the replaced patches can be removed. It has several advantages: + Nops' structs will no longer be necessary and might be removed. This would save memory, restore performance (no ftrace handler), allow clear view on what is really patched. + Disabling the patch will cause using the original code everywhere. Therefore the livepatch callbacks could handle only one scenario. Note that the complication is already complex enough when the patch gets enabled. It is currently solved by calling callbacks only from the new cumulative patch. + The state is clean in both the sysfs interface and lsmod. The modules with the replaced livepatches might even get removed from the system. Some people actually expected this behavior from the beginning. After all a cumulative patch is supposed to "completely" replace an existing one. It is like when a new version of an application replaces an older one. This patch does the first step. It removes the replaced patches from the list of patches. It is safe. The consistency model ensures that they are no longer used. By other words, each process works only with the structures from klp_transition_patch. The removal is done by a special function. It combines actions done by __disable_patch() and klp_complete_transition(). But it is a fast track without all the transaction-related stuff. Signed-off-by: Jason Baron [pmladek@suse.com: Split, reuse existing code, simplified] Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Cc: Josh Poimboeuf Cc: Jessica Yu Cc: Jiri Kosina Cc: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Simplify API by removing registration step

2019-01-11T19:51:24Z

The possibility to re-enable a registered patch was useful for immediate patches where the livepatch module had to stay until the system reboot. The improved consistency model allows to achieve the same result by unloading and loading the livepatch module again. Also we are going to add a feature called atomic replace. It will allow to create a patch that would replace all already registered patches. The aim is to handle dependent patches more securely. It will obsolete the stack of patches that helped to handle the dependencies so far. Then it might be unclear when a cumulative patch re-enabling is safe. It would be complicated to support the many modes. Instead we could actually make the API and code easier to understand. Therefore, remove the two step public API. All the checks and init calls are moved from klp_register_patch() to klp_enabled_patch(). Also the patch is automatically freed, including the sysfs interface when the transition to the disabled state is completed. As a result, there is never a disabled patch on the top of the stack. Therefore we do not need to check the stack in __klp_enable_patch(). And we could simplify the check in __klp_disable_patch(). Also the API and logic is much easier. It is enough to call klp_enable_patch() in module_init() call. The patch can be disabled by writing '0' into /sys/kernel/livepatch//enabled. Then the module can be removed once the transition finishes and sysfs interface is freed. The only problem is how to free the structures and kobjects safely. The operation is triggered from the sysfs interface. We could not put the related kobject from there because it would cause lock inversion between klp_mutex and kernfs locks, see kn->count lockdep map. Therefore, offload the free task to a workqueue. It is perfectly fine: + The patch can no longer be used in the livepatch operations. + The module could not be removed until the free operation finishes and module_put() is called. + The operation is asynchronous already when the first klp_try_complete_transition() fails and another call is queued with a delay. Suggested-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina

livepatch: Remove not longer valid limitations from the documentation

2018-05-24T13:37:57Z

Semantic changes are possible since the commit d83a7cb375eec21f04 ("livepatch: change to a per-task consistency model"). Also data structures can be patched since the commit 439e7271dc2b63de37 ("livepatch: introduce shadow variable API"). It is a high time we removed these limitations from the documentation. Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek Acked-by: Miroslav Benes Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina