Patch "tracing: Fix trace_printk() to print when not using bprintk()" has been added to the 4.5-stable tree

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

tracing: Fix trace_printk() to print when not using bprintk()

to the 4.5-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:
tracing-fix-trace_printk-to-print-when-not-using-bprintk.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.5 subdirectory.

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

From: "Steven Rostedt (Red Hat)" <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:30:58 -0400
Subject: tracing: Fix trace_printk() to print when not using bprintk()

From: Steven Rostedt (Red Hat) <[email protected]>

commit 3debb0a9ddb16526de8b456491b7db60114f7b5e upstream.

The trace_printk() code will allocate extra buffers if the compile detects that a trace_printk() is used. To do this, the format of the trace_printk() is saved to the __trace_printk_fmt section, and if that section is bigger than zero, the buffers are allocated (along with a message that this has happened).

If trace_printk() uses a format that is not a constant, and thus something not guaranteed to be around when the print happens, the compiler optimizes the fmt out, as it is not used, and the __trace_printk_fmt section is not filled. This means the kernel will not allocate the special buffers needed for the trace_printk() and the trace_printk() will not write anything to the tracing buffer.

Adding a "__used" to the variable in the __trace_printk_fmt section will keep it around, even though it is set to NULL. This will keep the string from being printed in the debugfs/tracing/printk_formats section as it is not needed.

---
 include/linux/kernel.h      |    6 +++---
 kernel/trace/trace_printk.c |    3 +++
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

@@ -635,7 +635,7 @@ do {							\
 
 #define do_trace_printk(fmt, args...)					\
 do {									\
-	static const char *trace_printk_fmt				\
+	static const char *trace_printk_fmt __used			\
 		__attribute__((section("__trace_printk_fmt"))) =	\
 		__builtin_constant_p(fmt) ? fmt : NULL;			\
 									\

@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@ int __trace_printk(unsigned long ip, con
  */
 
 #define trace_puts(str) ({						\
-	static const char *trace_printk_fmt				\
+	static const char *trace_printk_fmt __used			\
 		__attribute__((section("__trace_printk_fmt"))) =	\
 		__builtin_constant_p(str) ? str : NULL;			\
 									\

@@ -701,7 +701,7 @@ extern void trace_dump_stack(int skip);
 #define ftrace_vprintk(fmt, vargs)					\
 do {									\
 	if (__builtin_constant_p(fmt)) {				\
-		static const char *trace_printk_fmt			\
+		static const char *trace_printk_fmt __used		\
 		  __attribute__((section("__trace_printk_fmt"))) =	\
 			__builtin_constant_p(fmt) ? fmt : NULL;		\
 									\

@@ -296,6 +296,9 @@ static int t_show(struct seq_file *m, vo
 	const char *str = *fmt;
 	int i;
 
+	if (!*fmt)
+		return 0;
+
 	seq_printf(m, "0x%lx : \"", *(unsigned long *)fmt);
 
 	/*

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

queue-4.5/tracing-fix-trace_printk-to-print-when-not-using-bprintk.patch queue-4.5/tracing-fix-crash-from-reading-trace_pipe-with-sendfile.patch queue-4.5/tracing-have-preempt-irqs-off-trace-preempt-disabled-functions.patch