[PATCH v2 1/3] module: Rename module_alloc() to text_alloc() and move to kernel proper

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 03:19:24PM +0300, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> So perhaps the answer is to have text_alloc() not with a 'where'
> argument but with a 'why' argument. Or more simply, just have separate
> alloc/free APIs for each case, with generic versions that can be
> overridden by the architecture.

Well, there only seem to be 2 cases here, either the pointer needs to
fit in some immediate displacement, or not.

On x86 we seem have the advantage of a fairly large immediate
displacement as compared to many other architectures (due to our
variable sized instructions). And thus have been fairly liberal with our
usage of it (also our indirect jmps/calls suck, double so with
RETCH-POLINE).

Still, the indirect jump, as mentioned by Russel should work for
arbitrarily placed code for us too.


So I'm thinking that something like:

enum ptr_type {
	immediate_displacement,
	absolute,
};

void *text_alloc(unsigned long size, enum ptr_type type)
{
	unsigned long vstart = VMALLOC_START;
	unsigned long vend   = VMALLOC_END;

	if (type == immediate_displacement) {
		vstart = MODULES_VADDR;
		vend   = MODULES_END;
	}

	return __vmalloc_node_range(size, TEXT_ALIGN, vstart, vend,
				    GFP_KERNEL, PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC, 0,
				    NUMA_NO_NODE, _RET_IP_);
}

void text_free(void *ptr)
{
	vfree(ptr);
}

Should work for all cases. Yes, we might then want something like a per
arch:

	{BPF,FTRACE,KPROBE}_TEXT_TYPE

to help with text_alloc() usage in generic code, but I think
fundamentally, there's only these two options.