On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 09:50:52AM +0100, Nicholas Mc Guire wrote: > On Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 04:34:23PM -0500, Joe Lawrence wrote: > > On 12/14/2018 11:56 AM, Nicholas Mc Guire wrote: > > > Sparse reported warnings about non-static symbols. For the variables a > > > simple static attribute is fine - for those symbols referenced by > > > livepatch via klp_func the symbol-names must be unmodified in the > > > relocation table - to resolve this the __noclone attribute (as > > ^^^^^^^^^^ > > nit: symbol table > > that should have been relocation section as described in > Documentation/livepatch/module-elf-format.txt - atleast that is how > I currently undderstand the livepatch mechanism and its seperate > relocation section. > Hi Nicholas, Jessica can explain module-elf-format.txt in more detail, but the highlight is that it outlines the format for _livepatch_ modules, in this case livepatch-shadow-fix{1,2}.ko. The special relocations detailed in that file are needed when livepatch modules reference symbols defined elsewhere (vmlinux, other modules) that may not ordinarily be visible (non-exported, local, etc.) to the module loader. When livepatch modules register themselves on load, the livepatching core needs to find the address of the _target_ to-be-patched function using a kallsyms lookup. If that can't be found, the kernel will emit an error, "livepatch: symbol 'dummy_free' not found in symbol table". The call path is: klp_register_patch klp_init_object_loaded klp_find_object_symbol if you want to trace the execution path. > > thanks for your patience - so I did not yet understand how this really > works together - will give it a rerun and repost a hopefully proper > solution. > > thx! > hofrat Thanks for sticking with it and learning some livepatching internals along the way. -- Joe