Re: livepatch: reuse module loader code to write relocations

[Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>]

On Wed 2015-11-11 13:27:18, Jessica Yu wrote:
> Basically, the patch module code is expected to build the reloc_secs
> list for each object that is being patched. For example in kpatch, the
> patch module generates this list in patch_init(). Like you guessed, it
> does go through all the elf sections of the patch module to find the
> reloc sections marked SHF_RELA_LIVEPATCH. We are able to access these
> sections through module->info, which is set up for livepatch modules
> before the module loader calls do_init_module() (and hence before
> patch_init(), See patch 2/5).
> See below for an example of how the reloc_secs list might be built: https://github.com/flaming-toast/kpatch/blob/no_dynrela_redux/kmod/patch/livepatch-patch-hook.c#L213

Thanks a lot for the link and explanation. I think that it would be nice to
incorporate this into the patchset. I would put it into a separate
function, e.g. klp_reloc_secs_init(). It can be called either from
klp_register_patch() or from klp_init_patch().

> Once the patch module has built this list, it is good to go for use in
> livepatch core. All livepatch has to do then is to iterate though the
> list, resolve any outstanding symbols, and call apply_relocate_add(),
> as shown in this patch.
>
> Miroslav mentioned in another email that we should start thinking
> about including documentation about this, including the expected patch
> module format. So perhaps v2 should include some documentation about
> this whole process somewhere.

That would be cool.

Thank you,
Petr