Patch "Revert "powerpc64/elfv1: Only dereference function descriptor for non-text symbols"" has been added to the 4.13-stable tree

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

Revert "powerpc64/elfv1: Only dereference function descriptor for non-text symbols"

to the 4.13-stable tree which can be found at:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary

The filename of the patch is:
revert-powerpc64-elfv1-only-dereference-function-descriptor-for-non-text-symbols.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.13 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <[email protected]> know about it.

From: "Naveen N. Rao" <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2017 20:42:08 +0530
Subject: Revert "powerpc64/elfv1: Only dereference function descriptor for non-text symbols"

From: Naveen N. Rao <[email protected]>

commit 63be1a81e40733ecd175713b6a7558dc43f00851 upstream.

This reverts commit 83e840c770f2c5 ("powerpc64/elfv1: Only dereference function descriptor for non-text symbols").

Chandan reported that on newer kernels, trying to enable function_graph tracer on ppc64 (BE) locks up the system with the following trace:

  Unable to handle kernel paging request for data at address 0x600000002fa30010
  Faulting instruction address: 0xc0000000001f1300
  Thread overran stack, or stack corrupted
  Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1]
  BE SMP NR_CPUS=2048 DEBUG_PAGEALLOC NUMA pSeries
  Modules linked in:
  CPU: 1 PID: 6586 Comm: bash Not tainted 4.14.0-rc3-00162-g6e51f1f-dirty #20
  task: c000000625c07200 task.stack: c000000625c07310
  NIP:  c0000000001f1300 LR: c000000000121cac CTR: c000000000061af8
  REGS: c000000625c088c0 TRAP: 0380   Not tainted  (4.14.0-rc3-00162-g6e51f1f-dirty)
  MSR:  8000000000001032 <SF,ME,IR,DR,RI>  CR: 28002848  XER: 00000000
  CFAR: c0000000001f1320 SOFTE: 0
  ...
  NIP [c0000000001f1300] .__is_insn_slot_addr+0x30/0x90
  LR [c000000000121cac] .kernel_text_address+0x18c/0x1c0
  Call Trace:
  [c000000625c08b40] [c0000000001bd040] .is_module_text_address+0x20/0x40 (unreliable)
  [c000000625c08bc0] [c000000000121cac] .kernel_text_address+0x18c/0x1c0
  [c000000625c08c50] [c000000000061960] .prepare_ftrace_return+0x50/0x130
  [c000000625c08cf0] [c000000000061b10] .ftrace_graph_caller+0x14/0x34
  [c000000625c08d60] [c000000000121b40] .kernel_text_address+0x20/0x1c0
  [c000000625c08df0] [c000000000061960] .prepare_ftrace_return+0x50/0x130
  ...
  [c000000625c0ab30] [c000000000061960] .prepare_ftrace_return+0x50/0x130
  [c000000625c0abd0] [c000000000061b10] .ftrace_graph_caller+0x14/0x34
  [c000000625c0ac40] [c000000000121b40] .kernel_text_address+0x20/0x1c0
  [c000000625c0acd0] [c000000000061960] .prepare_ftrace_return+0x50/0x130
  [c000000625c0ad70] [c000000000061b10] .ftrace_graph_caller+0x14/0x34
  [c000000625c0ade0] [c000000000121b40] .kernel_text_address+0x20/0x1c0

This is because ftrace is using ppc_function_entry() for obtaining the address of return_to_handler() in prepare_ftrace_return(). The call to kernel_text_address() itself gets traced and we end up in a recursive loop.

---
 arch/powerpc/include/asm/code-patching.h |   10 +---------
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 9 deletions(-)

@@ -83,16 +83,8 @@ static inline unsigned long ppc_function
 	 * On PPC64 ABIv1 the function pointer actually points to the
 	 * function's descriptor. The first entry in the descriptor is the
 	 * address of the function text.
-	 *
-	 * However, we may also receive pointer to an assembly symbol. To
-	 * detect that, we first check if the function pointer we receive
-	 * already points to kernel/module text and we only dereference it
-	 * if it doesn't.
 	 */
-	if (kernel_text_address((unsigned long)func))
-		return (unsigned long)func;
-	else
-		return ((func_descr_t *)func)->entry;
+	return ((func_descr_t *)func)->entry;
 #else
 	return (unsigned long)func;
 #endif

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from [email protected] are

queue-4.13/revert-powerpc64-elfv1-only-dereference-function-descriptor-for-non-text-symbols.patch queue-4.13/powerpc-kprobes-dereference-function-pointers-only-if-the-address-does-not-belong-to-kernel-text.patch