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

[Himanshu Chauhan]

On Tue, Aug 4, 2026 at 10:42 PM Jesse Taube <jtaubepe at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>

All that is taken care of. There is a problem with icount triggers in
Qemu. Once I fix that, I will send v7 and It will contain single
stepping.

Regards
Himanshu

> 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
> >
>
>
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