[PATCH v6 0/5] riscv: Introduce support for hardware break/watchpoints

[Jesse Taube]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 9:49 AM Himanshu Chauhan
<himanshu.chauhan at oss.qualcomm.com> wrote:
>
> This patchset adds support for hardware breakpoints and watchpoints in the
> RISC-V architecture. The framework is built on top of the perf subsystem and
> the SBI debug trigger extension (Sdtrig).
>
> v6 extends v5 with two new patches:
>
>   - ptrace support: debuggers can now set and query hardware debug triggers
>     through the standard PTRACE_GETREGSET/SETREGSET interface using new
>     NT_RISCV_HW_BREAK/WATCH note types. A simpler PTRACE_GETHBPREGS/SETHBPREGS
>     request pair is also provided for direct single-trigger access without going
>     through the regset machinery. Thread flush/copy hooks are wired up so
>     per-task breakpoints are cleaned up across fork/exec.
>
>   - Extended selftest: the existing perf_event-based selftest is extended to
>     also exercise the new ptrace GETREGSET/SETREGSET regset path and the raw
>     PTRACE_GETHBPREGS/SETHBPREGS interface.

I would recoment addaping
`tools/testing/selftests/breakpoints/breakpoint_test_arm64.c` as a
test.
I set up a test repository here
https://github.com/Mr-Bossman/dbtr-buildroot for anyone else to test
this set.

Unfortunatly this set fails `perf test 15 16 17 18`. I would like
those tests to pass
before accepting this set. My set addresses the perf failures which is why it is
more complicated.

I would highly recommend basing your set off of it as it fixes many of
the issues that
I commented on in V5. The first two commits in my series are
refactoring duplicate code,
and can technically be dropped. Even if you don't go forward with using my set,
I would at least recommend taking a look at it, especially
`riscv: ptrace: Add hw breakpoint regset`
and
`riscv: ptrace: Add hw breakpoint support`
as they are significantly simpler.

https://github.com/Mr-Bossman/linux/commits/dev/jesse/sdtrig-rebase/

Thanks,
Jesse Taube

> Single stepping is ready and test but to follow this patch set.
> Virtualization of debug triggers are pending
>
> The SBI debug trigger extension is specified in Chapter 19 of the SBI
> specification:
>   https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-sbi-doc/releases/download/v3.0/riscv-sbi.pdf
>
> The Sdtrig ISA is part of the RISC-V debug specification:
>   https://github.com/riscv/riscv-debug-spec
>
> Changes from v5:
>   - Rebased to v7.2-rc6
>   - Simplified Macros in hw_breakpoint.h
>   - Took care of the review comments
>   - Added ptrace support for hardware break/watchpoints (new patch)
>     - PTRACE_GETREGSET/SETREGSET via NT_RISCV_HW_BREAK / NT_RISCV_HW_WATCH
>     - PTRACE_GETHBPREGS / SETHBPREGS for direct single-trigger access
>     - HAVE_MIXED_BREAKPOINTS_REGS selected (break/watch share trigger pool)
>     - flush_ptrace_hw_breakpoint / ptrace_hw_copy_thread wired up
>   - Extended selftest to cover ptrace-based hw break/watchpoint paths (new patch)
>
> Changes from v4:
>   - Rebased to v7.2-rc4
>   - Fixed rv32 build error
>   - Added pr_fmt to print KBUILD_MODNAME
>   - Changed type of shmem_pa to phys_addr_t
>   - Use per_cpu_ptr_to_phys instead of __pa for per-cpu allocated memory
>   - Print successful registration/unregistration message when no error
>   - Added RISC-V DEBUGGING section in MAINTAINERS and added myself as maintainer
>   - Fixed warnings from checkpatch.pl --strict run
>
> Changes from v3:
>   - Rebased to v7.1-rc3
>   - For watchpoints, check tdata1.hit via SBI_EXT_DBTR_TRIG_READ and keep
>     STVAL-based matching as fallback
>   - Improved watchpoint matching when STVAL reports the lowest accessed address
>     for wider memory accesses
>   - Program execute breakpoints with SIZE=0 (match any size) to avoid misses
>     with 16-bit/compressed instruction addresses
>   - Updated selftest to avoid deadlock by replacing unbounded sem_wait() with
>     sem_timedwait() timeout handling
>   - Updated selftest breakpoint function so it cannot be inlined or optimized away
>
> Changes from v2:
>   - Rebased to v7.0-rc1
>   - Fixed warnings from checkpatch.pl --strict run
>
> Changes from v1:
>   - The patch adding the SBI extension and function IDs is already merged; this
>     series builds on top of that
>   - Added breakpoint selftest in tools/testing/selftests/breakpoints/
>
> How to use:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~
> OpenSBI:
>   https://github.com/riscv-software-src/opensbi.git
>
> QEMU:
>   https://github.com/qemu/qemu.git
>
> Linux Kernel:
>   Apply these patches on top of v7.2-rc6.
>
> How to test:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~
> From the Linux kernel directory, first install the UAPI headers (required on a
> fresh tree so the compiler can locate <asm/ptrace.h> and the new
> NT_RISCV_HW_BREAK/WATCH definitions via KHDR_INCLUDES):
>
>   make headers
>
> Then build the selftest:
>
>   make -C tools/testing/selftests/breakpoints/
>
> This produces breakpoint_test_riscv under the same directory. Load it on the
> target and run. Sample output:
>
>   # /apps/breakpoint_test_riscv
>   # [perf_event]: Breakpoint test passed!
>   # [perf_event]: Watchpoint test passed!
>   # [ptrace]: Breakpoint test passed!
>   # ptrace(PTRACE_GETREGSET): Number of watchpoints: 2
>   # ptrace(PTRACE_GETREGSet): addr: 0x82888 control: 0x8080
>   # [ptrace]: Watchpoint test passed!
>   # [hbpregs] breakpoint readback: addr=0x10472 type=4 len=4 ctrl=0
>   # [hbpregs]: Breakpoint test passed!
>   # [hbpregs] watchpoint readback: addr=0x82888 type=2 len=8 ctrl=0
>   # [hbpregs]: Watchpoint test passed!
>
> Himanshu Chauhan (5):
>   riscv: Introduce support for hardware break/watchpoints
>   riscv: Add breakpoint and watchpoint test for riscv
>   riscv: ptrace support for hardware break/watchpoints
>   selftests/breakpoints: extend riscv test for ptrace hw
>     break/watchpoints
>   MAINTAINERS: Add entry for RISC-V Debugging
>
>  MAINTAINERS                                   |   9 +
>  arch/riscv/Kconfig                            |   2 +
>  arch/riscv/include/asm/hw_breakpoint.h        | 299 +++++++
>  arch/riscv/include/asm/kdebug.h               |   3 +-
>  arch/riscv/include/asm/processor.h            |  18 +
>  arch/riscv/include/uapi/asm/ptrace.h          |  53 ++
>  arch/riscv/kernel/Makefile                    |   1 +
>  arch/riscv/kernel/hw_breakpoint.c             | 677 ++++++++++++++++
>  arch/riscv/kernel/process.c                   |   5 +
>  arch/riscv/kernel/ptrace.c                    | 507 ++++++++++++
>  arch/riscv/kernel/traps.c                     |   6 +
>  include/uapi/linux/elf.h                      |   4 +
>  tools/include/uapi/linux/elf.h                |   2 +
>  tools/testing/selftests/breakpoints/Makefile  |   5 +
>  .../breakpoints/breakpoint_test_riscv.c       | 765 ++++++++++++++++++
>  15 files changed, 2355 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>  create mode 100644 arch/riscv/include/asm/hw_breakpoint.h
>  create mode 100644 arch/riscv/kernel/hw_breakpoint.c
>  create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/breakpoints/breakpoint_test_riscv.c
>
> --
> 2.43.0
>