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authorJinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com>2026-09-08 15:37:42 +0800
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2026-09-17 09:48:42 +0200
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tree73fef824f9a846cf935869d0dbc5070ef6e2f741 /Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst
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x86/kprobes: Fix crash when probing CS CALL instructionsgrafted
When using eBPF to probe CS CALL instructions within a function, a crash can be triggered. The eBPF tool probes offset 257 of the __hrtimer_run_queues() function: <__hrtimer_run_queues+249>: nopl 0x0(%rax,%rax,1) <__hrtimer_run_queues+254>: mov %r14,%rdi <__hrtimer_run_queues+257>: cs call <__x86_indirect_thunk_r12> <__hrtimer_run_queues+263>: mov %eax,%r12d <__hrtimer_run_queues+266>: xchg %ax,%ax <__hrtimer_run_queues+268>: mov %r13,%rdi Which triggers this crash: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 00000000000f41c9 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Kdump: loaded Tainted: P RIP: 0010:__hrtimer_run_queues+0x106/0x230 Note that __hrtimer_run_queues+0x106 is __hrtimer_run_queues+262, which is at the 6th byte of the above CS CALL instruction. Since the CS CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, the exception occurred in the middle of that call instruction. The root cause is that when using eBPF tools to probe in the middle of a function, a kprobe with INT3 is used as the underlying implementation. During single-step emulation of the original CALL instruction, int3_emulate_call() assumes that the probed CALL instruction is 5 bytes long. However, the actual CS-prefixed CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, so it constructs an incorrect exception return address. When the CPU returns from the kprobe handler, the next instruction to be executed is at the address of the last byte of that CS CALL instruction. Coincidentally, starting from that address, the CPU fetches and decodes a completely different instruction, which ultimately triggers a kernel crash. Fix the issue by using the actual instruction length obtained from the instruction decoder when constructing the exception return address, rather than relying on the hardcoded CALL_INSN_SIZE macro. [ mingo: Refined the changelog ] Fixes: 6256e668b7af ("x86/kprobes: Use int3 instead of debug trap for single-step") Suggested-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Jinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Acked-by: Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260908073742.GA10517@didi-ThinkCentre-M920t-N000
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+.. Copyright (C) 2025, Google LLC.
+
+.. _context-analysis:
+
+Compiler-Based Context Analysis
+===============================
+
+Context Analysis is a language extension, which enables statically checking
+that required contexts are active (or inactive) by acquiring and releasing
+user-definable "context locks". An obvious application is lock-safety checking
+for the kernel's various synchronization primitives (each of which represents a
+"context lock"), and checking that locking rules are not violated.
+
+The Clang compiler currently supports the full set of context analysis
+features. To enable for Clang, configure the kernel with::
+
+ CONFIG_WARN_CONTEXT_ANALYSIS=y
+
+The feature requires Clang 23 or later.
+
+The analysis is *opt-in by default*, and requires declaring which modules and
+subsystems should be analyzed in the respective `Makefile`::
+
+ CONTEXT_ANALYSIS_mymodule.o := y
+
+Or for all translation units in the directory::
+
+ CONTEXT_ANALYSIS := y
+
+It is possible to enable the analysis tree-wide, however, which will result in
+numerous false positive warnings currently and is *not* generally recommended::
+
+ CONFIG_WARN_CONTEXT_ANALYSIS_ALL=y
+
+Programming Model
+-----------------
+
+The below describes the programming model around using context lock types.
+
+.. note::
+ Enabling context analysis can be seen as enabling a dialect of Linux C with
+ a Context System. Some valid patterns involving complex control-flow are
+ constrained (such as conditional acquisition and later conditional release
+ in the same function).
+
+Context analysis is a way to specify permissibility of operations to depend on
+context locks being held (or not held). Typically we are interested in
+protecting data and code in a critical section by requiring a specific context
+to be active, for example by holding a specific lock. The analysis ensures that
+callers cannot perform an operation without the required context being active.
+
+Context locks are associated with named structs, along with functions that
+operate on struct instances to acquire and release the associated context lock.
+
+Context locks can be held either exclusively or shared. This mechanism allows
+assigning more precise privileges when a context is active, typically to
+distinguish where a thread may only read (shared) or also write (exclusive) to
+data guarded within a context.
+
+The set of contexts that are actually active in a given thread at a given point
+in program execution is a run-time concept. The static analysis works by
+calculating an approximation of that set, called the context environment. The
+context environment is calculated for every program point, and describes the
+set of contexts that are statically known to be active, or inactive, at that
+particular point. This environment is a conservative approximation of the full
+set of contexts that will actually be active in a thread at run-time.
+
+More details are also documented `here
+<https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ThreadSafetyAnalysis.html>`_.
+
+.. note::
+ Clang's analysis explicitly does not infer context locks acquired or
+ released by inline functions. It requires explicit annotations to (a) assert
+ that it's not a bug if a context lock is released or acquired, and (b) to
+ retain consistency between inline and non-inline function declarations.
+
+Supported Kernel Primitives
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Currently the following synchronization primitives are supported:
+`raw_spinlock_t`, `spinlock_t`, `rwlock_t`, `mutex`, `seqlock_t`,
+`bit_spinlock`, RCU, SRCU (`srcu_struct`), `rw_semaphore`, `local_lock_t`,
+`ww_mutex`.
+
+To initialize variables guarded by a context lock with an initialization
+function (``type_init(&lock)``), prefer using ``guard(type_init)(&lock)`` or
+``scoped_guard(type_init, &lock) { ... }`` to initialize such guarded members
+or globals in the enclosing scope. This initializes the context lock and treats
+the context as active within the initialization scope (initialization implies
+exclusive access to the underlying object).
+
+For example::
+
+ struct my_data {
+ spinlock_t lock;
+ int counter __guarded_by(&lock);
+ };
+
+ void init_my_data(struct my_data *d)
+ {
+ ...
+ guard(spinlock_init)(&d->lock);
+ d->counter = 0;
+ ...
+ }
+
+Alternatively, initializing guarded variables can be done with context analysis
+disabled, preferably in the smallest possible scope (due to lack of any other
+checking): either with a ``context_unsafe(var = init)`` expression, or by
+marking small initialization functions with the ``__context_unsafe(init)``
+attribute.
+
+Lockdep assertions, such as `lockdep_assert_held()`, inform the compiler's
+context analysis that the associated synchronization primitive is held after
+the assertion. This avoids false positives in complex control-flow scenarios
+and encourages the use of Lockdep where static analysis is limited. For
+example, this is useful when a function doesn't *always* require a lock, making
+`__must_hold()` inappropriate.
+
+Keywords
+~~~~~~~~
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/compiler-context-analysis.h
+ :identifiers: context_lock_struct
+ token_context_lock token_context_lock_instance
+ __guarded_by __pt_guarded_by
+ __must_hold
+ __must_not_hold
+ __acquires
+ __cond_acquires
+ __releases
+ __must_hold_shared
+ __acquires_shared
+ __cond_acquires_shared
+ __releases_shared
+ __acquire
+ __release
+ __acquire_shared
+ __release_shared
+ __acquire_ret
+ __acquire_shared_ret
+ context_unsafe
+ __context_unsafe
+ disable_context_analysis enable_context_analysis
+
+.. note::
+ The function attribute `__no_context_analysis` is reserved for internal
+ implementation of context lock types, and should be avoided in normal code.
+
+Background
+----------
+
+Clang originally called the feature `Thread Safety Analysis
+<https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ThreadSafetyAnalysis.html>`_, with some keywords
+and documentation still using the thread-safety-analysis-only terminology. This
+was later changed and the feature became more flexible, gaining the ability to
+define custom "capabilities". Its foundations can be found in `Capability
+Systems <https://www.cs.cornell.edu/talc/papers/capabilities.pdf>`_, used to
+specify the permissibility of operations to depend on some "capability" being
+held (or not held).
+
+Because the feature is not just able to express capabilities related to
+synchronization primitives, and "capability" is already overloaded in the
+kernel, the naming chosen for the kernel departs from Clang's initial "Thread
+Safety" and "capability" nomenclature; we refer to the feature as "Context
+Analysis" to avoid confusion. The internal implementation still makes
+references to Clang's terminology in a few places, such as `-Wthread-safety`
+being the warning option that also still appears in diagnostic messages.