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* [Patch 00/10] Hardware Breakpoint interfaces
@ 2009-02-15 10:30 K.Prasad
  2009-02-15 10:31 ` [Patch 1/10] Introducing generic hardware breakpoint handler interfaces K.Prasad
                   ` (9 more replies)
  0 siblings, 10 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: K.Prasad @ 2009-02-15 10:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ingo Molnar
  Cc: Andrew Morton, Alan Stern, Roland McGrath, richardj_moore,
	jason.wessel, Linux Kernel Mailing List, prasad

[Re-posting the patches with LKML included as a recipient]

Hi Ingo,
	Please find the patches that introduce interfaces to access
Hardware Breakpoint (or watchpoint) registers and an arch-specific
implementation for x86/x86_64 architecture. The patches have been
re-based to -tip tree (commit 4e3bae758b552d6bd094fb36e78a4d738cb42257)

A short description of the framework and interfaces is provided
below. Some of the details will be specific to x86/x86_64 architecture
and may vary depending upon the support provided by the target
processor.

Kindly accept these patches to become a part of -tip tree.

Description
-------------
The Hardware Breakpoint registers can be used for tracing changes to a
variable or data location (even I/O ports in x86/x86_64) and will be
extremely helpful in debugging problems such as memory corruption. While
these registers have been used by user-space debuggers for long (through
'ptrace' syscalls), Kgdb exploited them for kernel-space addresses.

The proposed framework, introduces interfaces to use them directly on
both  user- and kernel-space addresses apart from arbitrating requests
from various such users for the limited number of registers.

The interfaces are:

int register_kernel_hw_breakpoint(struct hw_breakpoint *);
void unregister_kernel_hw_breakpoint(struct hw_breakpoint *bp);

int register_user_hw_breakpoint(struct task_struct *tsk,
                                 struct hw_breakpoint *bp);
void unregister_user_hw_breakpoint(struct task_struct *tsk,
                struct hw_breakpoint *bp);

The 'struct hw_breakpoint' will be the anchor data-structure containing
all the necessary information such as name or address, type, length,
priority and pointers to handler functions (some of which are
arch-specific). More information about the role of each field, the
handler
functions and their return values can be found in the descriptive
comments
preceding these functions and in "include/asm-generic/hw_breakpoint.h".

While (un)register_user_hw_breakpoint() isn't exported yet, its
worker-routine __register_user-hw_breakpoint() is used by ptrace syscall
for all breakpoint register requirements. For the kernel-space, a simple
use case to trace 'write' operations on a kernel variable can be found
in samples/hw_breakpoint/data_breakpoint.c.

In the current patchset, support is provided only for read and
read-write breakpoints on data locations, which can be later expand to
include instruction and I/O breakpoints for x86/x86_64.

There is pending integration with 'KGDB' without which mutual exclusion
between them (KGDB and HW breakpoint use through above interfaces) needs
to be observed.

Thanks,
K.Prasad


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* [Patch 00/10] Hardware Breakpoint interfaces
@ 2009-02-13 14:53 K.Prasad
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: K.Prasad @ 2009-02-13 14:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ingo Molnar
  Cc: Andrew Morton, Alan Stern, Roland McGrath, richardj_moore, jason.wessel

Hi Ingo,
	Please find the patches that introduce interfaces to access
Hardware Breakpoint (or watchpoint) registers and an arch-specific
implementation for x86/x86_64 architecture. The patches have been
re-based to -tip tree (commit 4e3bae758b552d6bd094fb36e78a4d738cb42257)

A short description of the framework and interfaces is provided
below. Some of the details will be specific to x86/x86_64 architecture
and may vary depending upon the support provided by the target
processor.

Kindly accept these patches to become a part of -tip tree.

Description
-------------
The Hardware Breakpoint registers can be used for tracing changes to a
variable or data location (even I/O ports in x86/x86_64) and will be
extremely helpful in debugging problems such as memory corruption. While
these registers have been used by user-space debuggers for long (through
'ptrace' syscalls), Kgdb exploited them for kernel-space addresses.

The proposed framework, introduces interfaces to use them directly on
both  user- and kernel-space addresses apart from arbitrating requests
from various such users for the limited number of registers.

The interfaces are:

int register_kernel_hw_breakpoint(struct hw_breakpoint *);
void unregister_kernel_hw_breakpoint(struct hw_breakpoint *bp);

int register_user_hw_breakpoint(struct task_struct *tsk,
                                 struct hw_breakpoint *bp);
void unregister_user_hw_breakpoint(struct task_struct *tsk,
                struct hw_breakpoint *bp);

The 'struct hw_breakpoint' will be the anchor data-structure containing
all the necessary information such as name or address, type, length,
priority and pointers to handler functions (some of which are
arch-specific). More information about the role of each field, the
handler
functions and their return values can be found in the descriptive
comments
preceding these functions and in "include/asm-generic/hw_breakpoint.h".

While (un)register_user_hw_breakpoint() isn't exported yet, its
worker-routine __register_user-hw_breakpoint() is used by ptrace syscall
for all breakpoint register requirements. For the kernel-space, a simple
use case to trace 'write' operations on a kernel variable can be found
in samples/hw_breakpoint/data_breakpoint.c.

In the current patchset, support is provided only for read and
read-write breakpoints on data locations, which can be later expand to
include instruction and I/O breakpoints for x86/x86_64.

There is pending integration with 'KGDB' without which mutual exclusion
between them (KGDB and HW breakpoint use through above interfaces) needs
to be observed.

Thanks,
K.Prasad


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2009-02-15 10:36 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2009-02-15 10:30 [Patch 00/10] Hardware Breakpoint interfaces K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:31 ` [Patch 1/10] Introducing generic hardware breakpoint handler interfaces K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:32 ` [Patch 2/10] x86 architecture implementation of Hardware Breakpoint interfaces K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:33 ` [Patch 3/10] Modifying generic debug exception to use virtual debug registers K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:33 ` [Patch 4/10] Introduce virtual debug register in thread_struct and wrapper-routines around process related functions K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:34 ` [Patch 5/10] Use wrapper routines around debug registers in processor " K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:34 ` [Patch 6/10] Use virtual debug registers in process/thread handling code K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:34 ` [Patch 7/10] Modify signal handling code to refrain from re-enabling HW Breakpoints K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:35 ` [Patch 8/10] Modify Ptrace routines to access breakpoint registers K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:35 ` [Patch 9/10] Cleanup HW Breakpoint registers before kexec K.Prasad
2009-02-15 10:36 ` [Patch 10/10] Sample HW breakpoint over kernel data address K.Prasad
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2009-02-13 14:53 [Patch 00/10] Hardware Breakpoint interfaces K.Prasad

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