From a5f7a5bb3b7f28ba7e4fa246775b29a0e5537255 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jinke Han Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2026 15:37:42 +0800 Subject: x86/kprobes: Fix crash when probing CS CALL instructions 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) Signed-off-by: Jinke Han Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) Acked-by: Yafang Shao Acked-by: Borislav Petkov Cc: Peter Zijlstra Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260908073742.GA10517@didi-ThinkCentre-M920t-N000 --- Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst | 117 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 117 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst') diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..21a984337 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ +======== +CPU load +======== + +Linux exports various bits of information via ``/proc/stat`` and +``/proc/uptime`` that userland tools, such as top(1), use to calculate +the average time system spent in a particular state, for example:: + + $ iostat + Linux 2.6.18.3-exp (linmac) 02/20/2007 + + avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle + 10.01 0.00 2.92 5.44 0.00 81.63 + + ... + +Here the system thinks that over the default sampling period the +system spent 10.01% of the time doing work in user space, 2.92% in the +kernel, and was overall 81.63% of the time idle. + +In most cases the ``/proc/stat`` information reflects the reality quite +closely, however due to the nature of how/when the kernel collects +this data sometimes it can not be trusted at all. + +So how is this information collected? Whenever timer interrupt is +signalled the kernel looks what kind of task was running at this +moment and increments the counter that corresponds to this tasks +kind/state. The problem with this is that the system could have +switched between various states multiple times between two timer +interrupts yet the counter is incremented only for the last state. + + +Example +------- + +If we imagine the system with one task that periodically burns cycles +in the following manner:: + + time line between two timer interrupts + |--------------------------------------| + ^ ^ + |_ something begins working | + |_ something goes to sleep + (only to be awaken quite soon) + +In the above situation the system will be 0% loaded according to the +``/proc/stat`` (since the timer interrupt will always happen when the +system is executing the idle handler), but in reality the load is +closer to 99%. + +One can imagine many more situations where this behavior of the kernel +will lead to quite erratic information inside ``/proc/stat``:: + + + /* gcc -o hog smallhog.c */ + #include + #include + #include + #include + #define HIST 10 + + static volatile sig_atomic_t stop; + + static void sighandler(int signr) + { + (void) signr; + stop = 1; + } + + static unsigned long hog (unsigned long niters) + { + stop = 0; + while (!stop && --niters); + return niters; + } + + int main (void) + { + int i; + struct itimerval it = { + .it_interval = { .tv_sec = 0, .tv_usec = 1 }, + .it_value = { .tv_sec = 0, .tv_usec = 1 } }; + sigset_t set; + unsigned long v[HIST]; + double tmp = 0.0; + unsigned long n; + signal(SIGALRM, &sighandler); + setitimer(ITIMER_REAL, &it, NULL); + + hog (ULONG_MAX); + for (i = 0; i < HIST; ++i) v[i] = ULONG_MAX - hog(ULONG_MAX); + for (i = 0; i < HIST; ++i) tmp += v[i]; + tmp /= HIST; + n = tmp - (tmp / 3.0); + + sigemptyset(&set); + sigaddset(&set, SIGALRM); + + for (;;) { + hog(n); + sigwait(&set, &i); + } + return 0; + } + + +References +---------- + +- https://lore.kernel.org/r/loom.20070212T063225-663@post.gmane.org +- Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst (1.8) + + +Thanks +------ + +Con Kolivas, Pavel Machek -- cgit v1.3.1