linux/arch
Ingo Molnar 131484c8da x86/debug: Remove perpetually broken, unmaintainable dwarf annotations
So the dwarf2 annotations in low level assembly code have
become an increasing hindrance: unreadable, messy macros
mixed into some of the most security sensitive code paths
of the Linux kernel.

These debug info annotations don't even buy the upstream
kernel anything: dwarf driven stack unwinding has caused
problems in the past so it's out of tree, and the upstream
kernel only uses the much more robust framepointers based
stack unwinding method.

In addition to that there's a steady, slow bitrot going
on with these annotations, requiring frequent fixups.
There's no tooling and no functionality upstream that
keeps it correct.

So burn down the sick forest, allowing new, healthier growth:

   27 files changed, 350 insertions(+), 1101 deletions(-)

Someone who has the willingness and time to do this
properly can attempt to reintroduce dwarf debuginfo in x86
assembly code plus dwarf unwinding from first principles,
with the following conditions:

 - it should be maximally readable, and maximally low-key to
   'ordinary' code reading and maintenance.

 - find a build time method to insert dwarf annotations
   automatically in the most common cases, for pop/push
   instructions that manipulate the stack pointer. This could
   be done for example via a preprocessing step that just
   looks for common patterns - plus special annotations for
   the few cases where we want to depart from the default.
   We have hundreds of CFI annotations, so automating most of
   that makes sense.

 - it should come with build tooling checks that ensure that
   CFI annotations are sensible. We've seen such efforts from
   the framepointer side, and there's no reason it couldn't be
   done on the dwarf side.

Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: Frédéric Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Jan Beulich <JBeulich@suse.com>
Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
2015-06-02 07:57:48 +02:00
..
alpha alpha: forward declare struct pt_regs in processor.h 2015-04-17 09:03:53 -04:00
arc ARC: inline cache flush toggle helpers 2015-05-11 11:21:41 +05:30
arm ARM: SoC fixes for 4.1-rc3 2015-05-16 15:33:25 -07:00
arm64 ARM: SoC fixes for 4.1-rc3 2015-05-16 15:33:25 -07:00
avr32 Merge branch 'exec_domain_rip_v2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rw/misc 2015-04-15 13:53:55 -07:00
blackfin blackfin updates for Linux 4.1 2015-04-24 07:58:07 -07:00
c6x C6X Fixes for v4.1 2015-04-16 18:48:55 -04:00
cris CRIS changes for 4.1 2015-04-26 13:31:05 -07:00
frv Devicetree updates for 4.1: 2015-04-24 08:46:18 -07:00
hexagon Merge branch 'exec_domain_rip_v2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rw/misc 2015-04-15 13:53:55 -07:00
ia64 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2015-04-26 17:22:07 -07:00
m32r m32r: make flush_cpumask non-volatile. 2015-05-09 11:09:29 -07:00
m68k Merge branch 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gerg/m68knommu 2015-04-20 10:12:29 -07:00
metag Metag architecture changes for v4.1 2015-04-24 07:56:50 -07:00
microblaze microblaze: use asm-generic for seccomp.h 2015-04-17 09:04:10 -04:00
mips MIPS: tlb-r4k: Fix PG_ELPA comment 2015-05-15 22:02:50 +02:00
mn10300 Devicetree updates for 4.1: 2015-04-24 08:46:18 -07:00
nios2 nios2 update for v4.1-rc1 2015-04-24 07:59:07 -07:00
openrisc Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2015-04-15 16:39:15 -07:00
parisc parisc,metag: Fix crashes due to stack randomization on stack-grows-upwards architectures 2015-05-12 22:03:44 +02:00
powerpc powerpc/powernv: Restore non-volatile CRs after nap 2015-05-01 16:55:11 +10:00
s390 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/s390/linux 2015-04-28 09:58:46 -07:00
score arch: Remove exec_domain from remaining archs 2015-04-12 21:03:30 +02:00
sh Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.infradead.org/users/vkoul/slave-dma 2015-04-24 09:49:37 -07:00
sparc Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/sparc 2015-04-21 23:21:34 -07:00
tile tile: properly use node_isset() on a nodemask_t 2015-04-28 10:36:45 -04:00
um Merge branch 'exec_domain_rip_v2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rw/misc 2015-04-15 13:53:55 -07:00
unicore32 Merge branch 'exec_domain_rip_v2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rw/misc 2015-04-15 13:53:55 -07:00
x86 x86/debug: Remove perpetually broken, unmaintainable dwarf annotations 2015-06-02 07:57:48 +02:00
xtensa Xtensa changes and fixes for 4.1 2015-04-17 15:32:30 -04:00
.gitignore
Kconfig powerpc updates for 4.1 2015-04-16 13:53:32 -05:00