[PATCH v3 01/17] ARM: add mechanism for late code patching

[Cyril Chemparathy]

On 9/21/2012 2:09 PM, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012, Cyril Chemparathy wrote:
>
>> The original phys_to_virt/virt_to_phys patching implementation relied on early
>> patching prior to MMU initialization.  On PAE systems running out of >4G
>> address space, this would have entailed an additional round of patching after
>> switching over to the high address space.
>>
>> The approach implemented here conceptually extends the original PHYS_OFFSET
>> patching implementation with the introduction of "early" patch stubs.  Early
>> patch code is required to be functional out of the box, even before the patch
>> is applied.  This is implemented by inserting functional (but inefficient)
>> load code into the .runtime.patch.code init section.  Having functional code
>> out of the box then allows us to defer the init time patch application until
>> later in the init sequence.
>>
>> In addition to fitting better with our need for physical address-space
>> switch-over, this implementation should be somewhat more extensible by virtue
>> of its more readable (and hackable) C implementation.  This should prove
>> useful for other similar init time specialization needs, especially in light
>> of our multi-platform kernel initiative.
>>
>> This code has been boot tested in both ARM and Thumb-2 modes on an ARMv7
>> (Cortex-A8) device.
>>
>> Note: the obtuse use of stringified symbols in patch_stub() and
>> early_patch_stub() is intentional.  Theoretically this should have been
>> accomplished with formal operands passed into the asm block, but this requires
>> the use of the 'c' modifier for instantiating the long (e.g. .long %c0).
>> However, the 'c' modifier has been found to ICE certain versions of GCC, and
>> therefore we resort to stringified symbols here.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Cyril Chemparathy <cyril at ti.com>
>> Reviewed-by: Nicolas Pitre <nico at linaro.org>
>
> I know I provided review before, but here's another nit I'd like fixed:
>

Fixed for v4.  Thanks.

>> --- /dev/null
>> +++ b/arch/arm/include/asm/runtime-patch.h
>> @@ -0,0 +1,208 @@
>> +/*
>> + * arch/arm/include/asm/runtime-patch.h
>> + * Note: this file should not be included by non-asm/.h files
>> + *
>> + * Copyright 2012 Texas Instruments, Inc.
>> + *
>> + * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
>> + * under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License,
>> + * version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
>> + *
>> + * This program is distributed in the hope it will be useful, but WITHOUT
>> + * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
>> + * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for
>> + * more details.
>> + *
>> + * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
>> + * this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
>> + */
>> +#ifndef __ASM_ARM_RUNTIME_PATCH_H
>> +#define __ASM_ARM_RUNTIME_PATCH_H
>> +
>> +#include <linux/stringify.h>
>> +
>> +#ifndef __ASSEMBLY__
>> +
>> +#ifdef CONFIG_ARM_RUNTIME_PATCH
>
> [...]
>
>> +#else
>> +
>> +static inline int runtime_patch(const void *table, unsigned size)
>> +{
>> +	return 0;
>> +}
>
> This is wrong.  If runtime_patch() is ever called when
> CONFIG_ARM_RUNTIME_PATCH is not set, then i'd better return an error and
> not pretend it performed the requested action.  Returning -ENOSYS would
> be appropriate.
>
> This is especially important in the following context:
>
>> --- a/arch/arm/kernel/module.c
>> +++ b/arch/arm/kernel/module.c
>> @@ -321,6 +322,12 @@ int module_finalize(const Elf32_Ehdr *hdr, const Elf_Shdr *sechdrs,
>>   	if (s)
>>   		fixup_pv_table((void *)s->sh_addr, s->sh_size);
>>   #endif
>> +	s = find_mod_section(hdr, sechdrs, ".runtime.patch.table");
>> +	if (s) {
>> +		err = runtime_patch((void *)s->sh_addr, s->sh_size);
>> +		if (err)
>> +			return err;
>> +	}
>
> Despite the vermagic check, If ever a .runtime.patch.table section is
> found in a module to be loaded in a kernel with no support for it then
> it is best to return an error than see the kernel crashing later on when
> the fallback stubs have been discarded.
>
>
> Nicolas
>

-- 
Thanks
- Cyril