[PATCH v3 56/58] objtool/klp: Add test for UBSAN metadata in an unchanged function
From: Song Liu <song@kernel.org>
Date: 2026-09-14 23:08:34
Subsystem:
objtool, the rest · Maintainers:
Josh Poimboeuf, Peter Zijlstra, Linus Torvalds
Every instrumented operation gets a per-callsite metadata object in an anonymous data section -- .data..Lubsan_data and .data..Lubsan_type from GCC, .data..L__unnamed_ from Clang -- whose names are compiler-generated and mean nothing across a rebuild. is_uncorrelated_section() exists so klp diff does not try to pair them up, and nothing tested it. The failure it prevents is a false positive, which is the direction this suite has least coverage of. Metadata belonging to a function nobody touched compares as different and drags that function into the patch. That is not a build failure: it is a larger livepatch than intended, pulling in dependencies with it, and every extra function is one more that can fail to correlate or to apply. The fixture is built with -fsanitize=shift, which both compilers instrument; neither emits a bounds check for an index it can prove in range. One function changes, the other is byte-identical and carries instrumentation of its own, and the test asserts the second is left alone. Verified by removing each rule from is_uncorrelated_section() in turn, which splits neatly by toolchain: dropping the .data..Lubsan rule fails the test under gcc, dropping .data..L__unnamed_ fails it under clang. One test, two code paths, each checked by the compiler that reaches it. Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4 Based-on-test-by: Joe Lawrence [off-list ref] Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5 Signed-off-by: Song Liu <song@kernel.org> --- .../tests/generic/fixtures/ubsan_noise.c | 49 +++++++++++++++++++ .../objtool/tests/generic/test-ubsan-noise.sh | 48 ++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 97 insertions(+) create mode 100644 tools/objtool/tests/generic/fixtures/ubsan_noise.c create mode 100755 tools/objtool/tests/generic/test-ubsan-noise.sh
diff --git a/tools/objtool/tests/generic/fixtures/ubsan_noise.c b/tools/objtool/tests/generic/fixtures/ubsan_noise.c
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..bf5999254163
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/objtool/tests/generic/fixtures/ubsan_noise.c@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 +/* + * A translation unit built with UBSAN, where only one of two functions is + * patched. + * + * Every instrumented operation gets a per-callsite metadata object in an + * anonymous data section -- .data..Lubsan_data and .data..Lubsan_type from + * GCC, .data..L__unnamed_ from Clang -- and a call to a __ubsan_handle_* + * routine. The names are compiler-generated and carry no meaning across a + * rebuild, so klp diff has to treat those sections as uncorrelated rather than + * pairing them up by name. + * + * untouched() is byte-identical in both builds and exists to catch the false + * positive: if the metadata were correlated by name, its shifts would look + * changed and it would be dragged into the patch. + * + * The shifts are what draw the instrumentation. A bounds check would do as + * well but neither compiler emits one for an index it can prove in range. + */ + +static const char __modinfo[] + __attribute__((section(".modinfo"), used, aligned(1))) = "\0name=vmlinux"; + +int shift_by(int v, int n); + +int untouched(int v, int n) +{ + int s = 0; + + s += v << (n & 31); + s += v << ((n + 1) & 31); + s += shift_by(v, n); + + return s; +} + +int touched(int v, int n) +{ + int s = 0; + + s += v << (n & 31); +#ifdef PATCHED + s += v << ((n + 3) & 31); +#else + s += v << ((n + 2) & 31); +#endif + + return s; +}
diff --git a/tools/objtool/tests/generic/test-ubsan-noise.sh b/tools/objtool/tests/generic/test-ubsan-noise.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..b415eb16bfd2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/objtool/tests/generic/test-ubsan-noise.sh@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +#!/bin/bash +# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 +# +# UBSAN instrumentation in an unchanged function must not make it look changed. +# +# Every instrumented operation gets a per-callsite metadata object in an +# anonymous data section -- .data..Lubsan_data and .data..Lubsan_type from GCC, +# .data..L__unnamed_ from Clang -- whose names are compiler-generated and mean +# nothing across a rebuild. is_uncorrelated_section() exists so klp diff does +# not try to pair them up. +# +# Without that, the metadata belonging to a function nobody touched compares as +# different and drags the function into the patch. A livepatch which replaces +# functions the patch never changed is not a build failure: it is a larger +# patch than intended, taking its dependencies with it, and every extra +# function is one more that can fail to correlate or to apply. +# +# Covers the same ground as corpus/x86_64-ubsan/{ubsan-shift-noise, +# ubsan-metadata-data-section,gcc-ubsan-anonymous-data,ubsan-handler-cloning} +# and corpus/x86_64-llvm-ubsan/{clang-ubsan-bounds-noise, +# clang-ubsan-handler-cloning} in Joe Lawrence's klp-build unit test corpus. + +. "$(dirname "$0")/../lib.sh" + +setup +build_pair ubsan_noise.c -fsanitize=shift + +# The premise: this compiler really did instrument, and left its metadata in an +# anonymous section. Without that the test is just test-basic again. +ubsan_sec="$(in_sections orig.o | + grep -oE '\.data\.\.L(ubsan_data|__unnamed_)[A-Za-z0-9_.]*' | head -1)" +[ -n "$ubsan_sec" ] || + probe_skip "compiler emitted no anonymous UBSAN data section" +assert_input_symbol untouched + +run_diff + +# The changed function is patched, and the untouched one is left alone despite +# carrying instrumentation of its own. +assert_patched touched +assert_not_patched untouched + +# The handler the patched code calls has to come with it, or the clone calls +# nothing when its check fires. +out_symbols | grep -q '__ubsan_handle_' || + fail "no __ubsan_handle_* reference in the patched output" + +pass "UBSAN metadata in an unchanged function does not drag it into the patch"
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2.53.0-Meta