stacktrace/x86: add function for detecting reliable stack traces

For live patching and possibly other use cases, a stack trace is only
useful if it can be assured that it's completely reliable.  Add a new
save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() function to achieve that.

Note that if the target task isn't the current task, and the target task
is allowed to run, then it could be writing the stack while the unwinder
is reading it, resulting in possible corruption.  So the caller of
save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() must ensure that the task is either
'current' or inactive.

save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable() relies on the x86 unwinder's detection
of pt_regs on the stack.  If the pt_regs are not user-mode registers
from a syscall, then they indicate an in-kernel interrupt or exception
(e.g. preemption or a page fault), in which case the stack is considered
unreliable due to the nature of frame pointers.

It also relies on the x86 unwinder's detection of other issues, such as:

- corrupted stack data
- stack grows the wrong way
- stack walk doesn't reach the bottom
- user didn't provide a large enough entries array

Such issues are reported by checking unwind_error() and !unwind_done().

Also add CONFIG_HAVE_RELIABLE_STACKTRACE so arch-independent code can
determine at build time whether the function is implemented.

Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>	# for the x86 changes
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>

1 files changed, 6 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/stacktrace.h b/include/linux/stacktrace.h
index 0a34489a46b6..4205f71a5f0e 100644
--- a/include/linux/stacktrace.h
+++ b/include/linux/stacktrace.h
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ extern void save_stack_trace_regs(struct pt_regs *regs,
 				  struct stack_trace *trace);
 extern void save_stack_trace_tsk(struct task_struct *tsk,
 				struct stack_trace *trace);
+extern int save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable(struct task_struct *tsk,
+					 struct stack_trace *trace);
 
 extern void print_stack_trace(struct stack_trace *trace, int spaces);
 extern int snprint_stack_trace(char *buf, size_t size,
@@ -29,12 +31,13 @@ extern void save_stack_trace_user(struct stack_trace *trace);
 # define save_stack_trace_user(trace)              do { } while (0)
 #endif
 
-#else
+#else /* !CONFIG_STACKTRACE */
 # define save_stack_trace(trace)			do { } while (0)
 # define save_stack_trace_tsk(tsk, trace)		do { } while (0)
 # define save_stack_trace_user(trace)			do { } while (0)
 # define print_stack_trace(trace, spaces)		do { } while (0)
 # define snprint_stack_trace(buf, size, trace, spaces)	do { } while (0)
-#endif
+# define save_stack_trace_tsk_reliable(tsk, trace)	({ -ENOSYS; })
+#endif /* CONFIG_STACKTRACE */
 
-#endif
+#endif /* __LINUX_STACKTRACE_H */