[PATCH 2/8] ARM: ftrace: use ADD not POP to counter PUSH at entry

Ard Biesheuvel ardb at kernel.org
Tue Jan 25 07:36:50 PST 2022


The compiler emitted hook used for ftrace consists of a PUSH {LR} to
preserve the link register, followed by a branch-and-link (BL) to
__gnu_mount_nc. Dynamic ftrace patches away the latter to turn the
combined sequence into a NOP, using a POP {LR} instruction.

This is not necessary, since the link register does not get clobbered in
this case, and simply adding #4 to the stack pointer is sufficient, and
avoids a memory access that may take a few cycles to resolve depending
on the micro-architecture.

Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb at kernel.org>
---
 arch/arm/kernel/entry-ftrace.S | 2 +-
 arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c       | 4 ++--
 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm/kernel/entry-ftrace.S b/arch/arm/kernel/entry-ftrace.S
index f4886fb6e9ba..dca12a09322a 100644
--- a/arch/arm/kernel/entry-ftrace.S
+++ b/arch/arm/kernel/entry-ftrace.S
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
  * allows it to be clobbered in subroutines and doesn't use it to hold
  * parameters.)
  *
- * When using dynamic ftrace, we patch out the mcount call by a "pop {lr}"
+ * When using dynamic ftrace, we patch out the mcount call by a "add sp, #4"
  * instead of the __gnu_mcount_nc call (see arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c).
  */
 
diff --git a/arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c b/arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c
index a006585e1c09..db72d3a6522d 100644
--- a/arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c
+++ b/arch/arm/kernel/ftrace.c
@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@
 #include <asm/patch.h>
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_THUMB2_KERNEL
-#define	NOP		0xf85deb04	/* pop.w {lr} */
+#define	NOP		0xf10d0d04	/* add.w sp, sp, #4 */
 #else
-#define	NOP		0xe8bd4000	/* pop {lr} */
+#define	NOP		0xe28dd004	/* add   sp, sp, #4 */
 #endif
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_DYNAMIC_FTRACE
-- 
2.30.2




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