Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] module: Rename module_alloc() to text_alloc() and move to kernel proper

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:28:27AM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:

As Ard says, module_alloc() _is_ special, in the sense that the virtual
memory it allocates wants to be close to the kernel text, whereas the
concept of allocating executable memory is broader and doesn't have these
restrictions. So, while I'm in favour of having a text_alloc() interface
that can be used by callers which only require an executable mapping, I'd
much prefer for the module_alloc() code to remain for, err, modules.

So on x86 all those things (kprobes, bpf, ftrace) require that same
closeness.

An interface like the late vmalloc_exec() will simply not work for us.

We recently talked about arm64-kprobes and how you're not doing any of
the optimizations and fully rely on the exception return. And I see
you're one of the few archs that has bpf_jit_alloc_exec() (also,
shouldn't you be using PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC there?). But the BPF core seems
to use module_alloc() as a default means of allocating text.


So what should this look like? Have a text_alloc() with an argument that
indicates where? But then I suppose we also need a means to manage PLT
entries. Otherwise I don't exactly see how you're going to call BPF
code, or how that BPF stuff is going to call back into its helpers.