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author | Linus Torvalds | 2017-09-04 09:52:57 -0700 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds | 2017-09-04 09:52:57 -0700 |
commit | b0c79f49c343cda8954b3322984c32f258ca4ccb (patch) | |
tree | dd823d13683b7e6b0caebcaf3964df6150aee294 /Documentation | |
parent | f213a6c84c1b4b396a0713ee33cff0e02ba8235f (diff) | |
parent | dd88a0a0c8615417fe6b4285769b5b772de87279 (diff) |
Merge branch 'x86-asm-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull x86 asm updates from Ingo Molnar:
- Introduce the ORC unwinder, which can be enabled via
CONFIG_ORC_UNWINDER=y.
The ORC unwinder is a lightweight, Linux kernel specific debuginfo
implementation, which aims to be DWARF done right for unwinding.
Objtool is used to generate the ORC unwinder tables during build, so
the data format is flexible and kernel internal: there's no
dependency on debuginfo created by an external toolchain.
The ORC unwinder is almost two orders of magnitude faster than the
(out of tree) DWARF unwinder - which is important for perf call graph
profiling. It is also significantly simpler and is coded defensively:
there has not been a single ORC related kernel crash so far, even
with early versions. (knock on wood!)
But the main advantage is that enabling the ORC unwinder allows
CONFIG_FRAME_POINTERS to be turned off - which speeds up the kernel
measurably:
With frame pointers disabled, GCC does not have to add frame pointer
instrumentation code to every function in the kernel. The kernel's
.text size decreases by about 3.2%, resulting in better cache
utilization and fewer instructions executed, resulting in a broad
kernel-wide speedup. Average speedup of system calls should be
roughly in the 1-3% range - measurements by Mel Gorman [1] have shown
a speedup of 5-10% for some function execution intense workloads.
The main cost of the unwinder is that the unwinder data has to be
stored in RAM: the memory cost is 2-4MB of RAM, depending on kernel
config - which is a modest cost on modern x86 systems.
Given how young the ORC unwinder code is it's not enabled by default
- but given the performance advantages the plan is to eventually make
it the default unwinder on x86.
See Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.txt for more details.
- Remove lguest support: its intended role was that of a temporary
proof of concept for virtualization, plus its removal will enable the
reduction (removal) of the paravirt API as well, so Rusty agreed to
its removal. (Juergen Gross)
- Clean up and fix FSGS related functionality (Andy Lutomirski)
- Clean up IO access APIs (Andy Shevchenko)
- Enhance the symbol namespace (Jiri Slaby)
* 'x86-asm-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (47 commits)
objtool: Handle GCC stack pointer adjustment bug
x86/entry/64: Use ENTRY() instead of ALIGN+GLOBAL for stub32_clone()
x86/fpu/math-emu: Add ENDPROC to functions
x86/boot/64: Extract efi_pe_entry() from startup_64()
x86/boot/32: Extract efi_pe_entry() from startup_32()
x86/lguest: Remove lguest support
x86/paravirt/xen: Remove xen_patch()
objtool: Fix objtool fallthrough detection with function padding
x86/xen/64: Fix the reported SS and CS in SYSCALL
objtool: Track DRAP separately from callee-saved registers
objtool: Fix validate_branch() return codes
x86: Clarify/fix no-op barriers for text_poke_bp()
x86/switch_to/64: Rewrite FS/GS switching yet again to fix AMD CPUs
selftests/x86/fsgsbase: Test selectors 1, 2, and 3
x86/fsgsbase/64: Report FSBASE and GSBASE correctly in core dumps
x86/fsgsbase/64: Fully initialize FS and GS state in start_thread_common
x86/asm: Fix UNWIND_HINT_REGS macro for older binutils
x86/asm/32: Fix regs_get_register() on segment registers
x86/xen/64: Rearrange the SYSCALL entries
x86/asm/32: Remove a bunch of '& 0xffff' from pt_regs segment reads
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.txt | 179 |
1 files changed, 179 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.txt b/Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..af0c9a4c65a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.txt @@ -0,0 +1,179 @@ +ORC unwinder +============ + +Overview +-------- + +The kernel CONFIG_ORC_UNWINDER option enables the ORC unwinder, which is +similar in concept to a DWARF unwinder. The difference is that the +format of the ORC data is much simpler than DWARF, which in turn allows +the ORC unwinder to be much simpler and faster. + +The ORC data consists of unwind tables which are generated by objtool. +They contain out-of-band data which is used by the in-kernel ORC +unwinder. Objtool generates the ORC data by first doing compile-time +stack metadata validation (CONFIG_STACK_VALIDATION). After analyzing +all the code paths of a .o file, it determines information about the +stack state at each instruction address in the file and outputs that +information to the .orc_unwind and .orc_unwind_ip sections. + +The per-object ORC sections are combined at link time and are sorted and +post-processed at boot time. The unwinder uses the resulting data to +correlate instruction addresses with their stack states at run time. + + +ORC vs frame pointers +--------------------- + +With frame pointers enabled, GCC adds instrumentation code to every +function in the kernel. The kernel's .text size increases by about +3.2%, resulting in a broad kernel-wide slowdown. Measurements by Mel +Gorman [1] have shown a slowdown of 5-10% for some workloads. + +In contrast, the ORC unwinder has no effect on text size or runtime +performance, because the debuginfo is out of band. So if you disable +frame pointers and enable the ORC unwinder, you get a nice performance +improvement across the board, and still have reliable stack traces. + +Ingo Molnar says: + + "Note that it's not just a performance improvement, but also an + instruction cache locality improvement: 3.2% .text savings almost + directly transform into a similarly sized reduction in cache + footprint. That can transform to even higher speedups for workloads + whose cache locality is borderline." + +Another benefit of ORC compared to frame pointers is that it can +reliably unwind across interrupts and exceptions. Frame pointer based +unwinds can sometimes skip the caller of the interrupted function, if it +was a leaf function or if the interrupt hit before the frame pointer was +saved. + +The main disadvantage of the ORC unwinder compared to frame pointers is +that it needs more memory to store the ORC unwind tables: roughly 2-4MB +depending on the kernel config. + + +ORC vs DWARF +------------ + +ORC debuginfo's advantage over DWARF itself is that it's much simpler. +It gets rid of the complex DWARF CFI state machine and also gets rid of +the tracking of unnecessary registers. This allows the unwinder to be +much simpler, meaning fewer bugs, which is especially important for +mission critical oops code. + +The simpler debuginfo format also enables the unwinder to be much faster +than DWARF, which is important for perf and lockdep. In a basic +performance test by Jiri Slaby [2], the ORC unwinder was about 20x +faster than an out-of-tree DWARF unwinder. (Note: That measurement was +taken before some performance tweaks were added, which doubled +performance, so the speedup over DWARF may be closer to 40x.) + +The ORC data format does have a few downsides compared to DWARF. ORC +unwind tables take up ~50% more RAM (+1.3MB on an x86 defconfig kernel) +than DWARF-based eh_frame tables. + +Another potential downside is that, as GCC evolves, it's conceivable +that the ORC data may end up being *too* simple to describe the state of +the stack for certain optimizations. But IMO this is unlikely because +GCC saves the frame pointer for any unusual stack adjustments it does, +so I suspect we'll really only ever need to keep track of the stack +pointer and the frame pointer between call frames. But even if we do +end up having to track all the registers DWARF tracks, at least we will +still be able to control the format, e.g. no complex state machines. + + +ORC unwind table generation +--------------------------- + +The ORC data is generated by objtool. With the existing compile-time +stack metadata validation feature, objtool already follows all code +paths, and so it already has all the information it needs to be able to +generate ORC data from scratch. So it's an easy step to go from stack +validation to ORC data generation. + +It should be possible to instead generate the ORC data with a simple +tool which converts DWARF to ORC data. However, such a solution would +be incomplete due to the kernel's extensive use of asm, inline asm, and +special sections like exception tables. + +That could be rectified by manually annotating those special code paths +using GNU assembler .cfi annotations in .S files, and homegrown +annotations for inline asm in .c files. But asm annotations were tried +in the past and were found to be unmaintainable. They were often +incorrect/incomplete and made the code harder to read and keep updated. +And based on looking at glibc code, annotating inline asm in .c files +might be even worse. + +Objtool still needs a few annotations, but only in code which does +unusual things to the stack like entry code. And even then, far fewer +annotations are needed than what DWARF would need, so they're much more +maintainable than DWARF CFI annotations. + +So the advantages of using objtool to generate ORC data are that it +gives more accurate debuginfo, with very few annotations. It also +insulates the kernel from toolchain bugs which can be very painful to +deal with in the kernel since we often have to workaround issues in +older versions of the toolchain for years. + +The downside is that the unwinder now becomes dependent on objtool's +ability to reverse engineer GCC code flow. If GCC optimizations become +too complicated for objtool to follow, the ORC data generation might +stop working or become incomplete. (It's worth noting that livepatch +already has such a dependency on objtool's ability to follow GCC code +flow.) + +If newer versions of GCC come up with some optimizations which break +objtool, we may need to revisit the current implementation. Some +possible solutions would be asking GCC to make the optimizations more +palatable, or having objtool use DWARF as an additional input, or +creating a GCC plugin to assist objtool with its analysis. But for now, +objtool follows GCC code quite well. + + +Unwinder implementation details +------------------------------- + +Objtool generates the ORC data by integrating with the compile-time +stack metadata validation feature, which is described in detail in +tools/objtool/Documentation/stack-validation.txt. After analyzing all +the code paths of a .o file, it creates an array of orc_entry structs, +and a parallel array of instruction addresses associated with those +structs, and writes them to the .orc_unwind and .orc_unwind_ip sections +respectively. + +The ORC data is split into the two arrays for performance reasons, to +make the searchable part of the data (.orc_unwind_ip) more compact. The +arrays are sorted in parallel at boot time. + +Performance is further improved by the use of a fast lookup table which +is created at runtime. The fast lookup table associates a given address +with a range of indices for the .orc_unwind table, so that only a small +subset of the table needs to be searched. + + +Etymology +--------- + +Orcs, fearsome creatures of medieval folklore, are the Dwarves' natural +enemies. Similarly, the ORC unwinder was created in opposition to the +complexity and slowness of DWARF. + +"Although Orcs rarely consider multiple solutions to a problem, they do +excel at getting things done because they are creatures of action, not +thought." [3] Similarly, unlike the esoteric DWARF unwinder, the +veracious ORC unwinder wastes no time or siloconic effort decoding +variable-length zero-extended unsigned-integer byte-coded +state-machine-based debug information entries. + +Similar to how Orcs frequently unravel the well-intentioned plans of +their adversaries, the ORC unwinder frequently unravels stacks with +brutal, unyielding efficiency. + +ORC stands for Oops Rewind Capability. + + +[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170602104048.jkkzssljsompjdwy@suse.de +[2] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/d2ca5435-6386-29b8-db87-7f227c2b713a@suse.cz +[3] http://dustin.wikidot.com/half-orcs-and-orcs |