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Miroslav Benes 43347d56c8 livepatch: send a fake signal to all blocking tasks
Live patching consistency model is of LEAVE_PATCHED_SET and
SWITCH_THREAD. This means that all tasks in the system have to be marked
one by one as safe to call a new patched function. Safe means when a
task is not (sleeping) in a set of patched functions. That is, no
patched function is on the task's stack. Another clearly safe place is
the boundary between kernel and userspace. The patching waits for all
tasks to get outside of the patched set or to cross the boundary. The
transition is completed afterwards.

The problem is that a task can block the transition for quite a long
time, if not forever. It could sleep in a set of patched functions, for
example.  Luckily we can force the task to leave the set by sending it a
fake signal, that is a signal with no data in signal pending structures
(no handler, no sign of proper signal delivered). Suspend/freezer use
this to freeze the tasks as well. The task gets TIF_SIGPENDING set and
is woken up (if it has been sleeping in the kernel before) or kicked by
rescheduling IPI (if it was running on other CPU). This causes the task
to go to kernel/userspace boundary where the signal would be handled and
the task would be marked as safe in terms of live patching.

There are tasks which are not affected by this technique though. The
fake signal is not sent to kthreads. They should be handled differently.
They can be woken up so they leave the patched set and their
TIF_PATCH_PENDING can be cleared thanks to stack checking.

For the sake of completeness, if the task is in TASK_RUNNING state but
not currently running on some CPU it doesn't get the IPI, but it would
eventually handle the signal anyway. Second, if the task runs in the
kernel (in TASK_RUNNING state) it gets the IPI, but the signal is not
handled on return from the interrupt. It would be handled on return to
the userspace in the future when the fake signal is sent again. Stack
checking deals with these cases in a better way.

If the task was sleeping in a syscall it would be woken by our fake
signal, it would check if TIF_SIGPENDING is set (by calling
signal_pending() predicate) and return ERESTART* or EINTR. Syscalls with
ERESTART* return values are restarted in case of the fake signal (see
do_signal()). EINTR is propagated back to the userspace program. This
could disturb the program, but...

* each process dealing with signals should react accordingly to EINTR
  return values.
* syscalls returning EINTR happen to be quite common situation in the
  system even if no fake signal is sent.
* freezer sends the fake signal and does not deal with EINTR anyhow.
  Thus EINTR values are returned when the system is resumed.

The very safe marking is done in architectures' "entry" on syscall and
interrupt/exception exit paths, and in a stack checking functions of
livepatch.  TIF_PATCH_PENDING is cleared and the next
recalc_sigpending() drops TIF_SIGPENDING. In connection with this, also
call klp_update_patch_state() before do_signal(), so that
recalc_sigpending() in dequeue_signal() can clear TIF_PATCH_PENDING
immediately and thus prevent a double call of do_signal().

Note that the fake signal is not sent to stopped/traced tasks. Such task
prevents the patching to finish till it continues again (is not traced
anymore).

Last, sending the fake signal is not automatic. It is done only when
admin requests it by writing 1 to signal sysfs attribute in livepatch
sysfs directory.

Signed-off-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org
Cc: x86@kernel.org
Acked-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au> (powerpc)
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
2017-12-04 22:34:57 +01:00
arch livepatch: send a fake signal to all blocking tasks 2017-12-04 22:34:57 +01:00
block Merge branch 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/shli/md 2017-11-14 16:07:26 -08:00
certs License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
crypto Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2017-11-14 10:52:09 -08:00
Documentation livepatch: send a fake signal to all blocking tasks 2017-12-04 22:34:57 +01:00
drivers Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
firmware License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
fs Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
include Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/livepatching 2017-11-15 10:21:58 -08:00
init Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
ipc License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
kernel livepatch: send a fake signal to all blocking tasks 2017-12-04 22:34:57 +01:00
lib Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
mm Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
net Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2017-11-14 10:52:09 -08:00
samples Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/livepatching 2017-11-15 10:21:58 -08:00
scripts DeviceTree for 4.15: 2017-11-14 18:25:40 -08:00
security Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2017-11-14 10:52:09 -08:00
sound sound updates for 4.15-rc1 2017-11-14 18:01:46 -08:00
tools This is the bulk of GPIO changes for the v4.15 kernel cycle: 2017-11-14 17:23:44 -08:00
usr initramfs: fix initramfs rebuilds w/ compression after disabling 2017-11-03 07:39:19 -07:00
virt Merge branch 'linus' into locking/core, to resolve conflicts 2017-11-07 10:32:44 +01:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore .gitignore: move *.dtb and *.dtb.S patterns to the top-level .gitignore 2017-11-08 11:20:24 -06:00
.mailmap .mailmap: Add Maciej W. Rozycki's Imagination e-mail address 2017-11-10 12:16:15 -08:00
COPYING
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: update TPM driver infrastructure changes 2017-11-09 17:58:40 -08:00
Kbuild License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
Kconfig License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
MAINTAINERS Merge branch 'for-linus' of ssh://gitolite.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-11-15 10:14:11 -08:00
Makefile DeviceTree for 4.15: 2017-11-14 18:25:40 -08:00
README README: add a new README file, pointing to the Documentation/ 2016-10-24 08:12:35 -02:00

Linux kernel
============

This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst

Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users.
These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.