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From: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
To: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>, Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>,
	David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org,
	bpf@vger.kernel.org, Jim Cromie <jim.cromie@gmail.com>,
	Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
Cc: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>,
	Andrey Grodzovsky <andrey.grodzovsky@crowdstrike.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
	Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>,
	Samuel Wu <wusamuel@google.com>,
	linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v3 next 08/13] kallsyms: Optimise symbol name search
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2026 11:59:06 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261111115911.1142000-9-david.laight.linux@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261111115911.1142000-1-david.laight.linux@gmail.com>

Change the alphabetically ordered lookup table (kallsyms_seqs_of_names)
to one that indexes the table of compressed names rather than the
array of symbol values.
This removes all the linear scans during the binary search for the symbol
name.
Once the name has been found a second binary search of the 'markers' array
followed by a linear scan for the symbols address gives the symbol value.

This linear scan is done once for each address returned, whereas the old
code did the scan for each of the ~17 comparisons in the binary search
(and the binary search was done twice for a symbol that appears once).

For normal kernels the index table stays at 24 bits per symbol (now host
ordered), but a 32 bit table is used if necessary (probably only for
allyesconfig builds - which needs 26 bits on x86-64).

Use the low bit of the index table value to indicate that the symbol has
the same name as the previous one.
Use this to avoid the second lookup to find if the name is unique, speed
up the search for the first symbol with a given name, and simplify
kallsyms_on_each_match_symbol().

Speeds up lookup by name by a factor of about 12, and makes a massive
difference to the time taken to lookup symbols that occur 100s or
1000s (or maybe 10000s) of times.

The slowest 'lookup by name' changes being a symbol that is duplicated a lot
to one that is very long.

Build for BE kernels correctly flips the byte order in the index table.

Signed-off-by: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
---

v3:
- Use a discrimant union for the name table instead of weak symbols.
  Undefined weak symbols can't be guaranteed to be zero and a build
  mismatch left both undefined.
- Patch the kallsyms_off_size_24 static key from an initcall,
  the first name lookup might not be allowed to sleep.
  Leave a conditional in the 32bit offset case, it is unlikely
  to be needed for a real kernel.
- Merge in the following patch that optimised the scan for duplicates.

 kernel/kallsyms.c          | 162 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
 kernel/kallsyms_internal.h |   7 +-
 scripts/kallsyms.c         |  49 +++++++----
 3 files changed, 148 insertions(+), 70 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/kallsyms.c b/kernel/kallsyms.c
index d18d78e626db..fd42a1a8ed3e 100644
--- a/kernel/kallsyms.c
+++ b/kernel/kallsyms.c
@@ -177,6 +177,36 @@ static unsigned int get_symbol_offset(unsigned long pos)
 	return name - kallsyms_names;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Find the value of a symbol given the offset in the compressed stream.
+ */
+static unsigned long get_name_address(unsigned int name_offset)
+{
+	unsigned int low, pos, high;
+
+	low = 0;
+	high = ((kallsyms_num_syms - 1) >> 8) + 1;
+
+	while (high - low > 1) {
+		pos = low + (high - low) / 2;
+		if (name_offset >= kallsyms_markers[pos])
+			low = pos;
+		else
+			high = pos;
+	}
+
+	pos = kallsyms_markers[low];
+	for (low <<= 8; pos < name_offset; low++) {
+		unsigned int len = kallsyms_names[pos];
+		if (len & 0x80)
+			len += (kallsyms_names[pos + 1] << 7) - 0x7f;
+		pos += 1 + len;
+	}
+
+	return kallsyms_sym_address(low);
+}
+
+
 unsigned long kallsyms_sym_address(int idx)
 {
 	/* non-relocatable 32-bit kernels just embed the value directly */
@@ -185,66 +215,87 @@ unsigned long kallsyms_sym_address(int idx)
 	return (unsigned long)offset_to_ptr(kallsyms_offsets + idx);
 }
 
-static unsigned int get_symbol_seq(int index)
-{
-	unsigned int i, seq = 0;
+static DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(kallsyms_off_size_24);
 
-	for (i = 0; i < 3; i++)
-		seq = (seq << 8) | kallsyms_seqs_of_names[3 * index + i];
+/*
+ * Get the offset into the compressed list of names for the n'th
+ * symbol in the 'sorted by name' list.
+ * Returns 'offset << 1 | is_duplicate_name'.
+ * To save memory (the array can have 200k+ entries) the values are usually
+ * 24 bit (host ordered) but will be 32 bit if necessary.
+ */
+static inline unsigned int get_symbol_name_offset(unsigned long index)
+{
+	if (static_branch_likely(&kallsyms_off_size_24) ||
+	    unlikely(kallsyms_offs_of_names.size == 24)) {
+		u8 *off = kallsyms_offs_of_names.offs + index * 3;
+#if !defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS)
+		return ((struct {unsigned int v:24 __packed; } __packed *)off)->v;
+#else
+#if defined(__BIG_ENDIAN)
+		return (*(u32 *)(off - 1)) & 0xffffff;
+#else
+		return (*(u32 *)(off - 1)) >> 8;
+#endif
+#endif
+	}
 
-	return seq;
+	return ((u32 *)&kallsyms_offs_of_names.offs)[index];
 }
 
-static int kallsyms_lookup_names(const char *name,
-				 unsigned int *start,
-				 unsigned int *end)
+static int kallsyms_set_kallsyms_off_size(void)
 {
+	if (kallsyms_offs_of_names.size == 24)
+		static_branch_enable(&kallsyms_off_size_24);
+
+	return 0;
+}
+early_initcall(kallsyms_set_kallsyms_off_size);
+
+static int kallsyms_lookup_names(const char *name, unsigned int *start)
+{
+	unsigned int mid, off;
+	int low, high;
 	int ret;
-	int low, mid, high;
-	unsigned int seq, off;
 
 	low = 0;
 	high = kallsyms_num_syms - 1;
 
-	while (low <= high) {
+	for (;;) {
+		if (low > high)
+			return -1;
 		mid = low + (high - low) / 2;
-		seq = get_symbol_seq(mid);
-		off = get_symbol_offset(seq);
-		ret = kallsyms_strcmp_symbol(off, name);
-		if (ret > 0)
+		off = get_symbol_name_offset(mid);
+		ret = kallsyms_strcmp_symbol(off >> 1, name);
+		if (ret > 0) {
 			low = mid + 1;
-		else if (ret < 0)
-			high = mid - 1;
-		else
-			break;
-	}
-
-	if (low > high)
-		return -ESRCH;
-
-	low = mid;
-	while (low) {
-		seq = get_symbol_seq(low - 1);
-		off = get_symbol_offset(seq);
-		if (kallsyms_strcmp_symbol(off, name) != 0)
-			break;
-		low--;
-	}
-	*start = low;
-
-	if (end) {
-		high = mid;
-		while (high < kallsyms_num_syms - 1) {
-			seq = get_symbol_seq(high + 1);
-			off = get_symbol_offset(seq);
-			if (kallsyms_strcmp_symbol(off, name) != 0)
+			continue;
+		}
+		if (!ret) {
+			/*
+			 * Found a match, but need the first one.
+			 * Most symbols (and all exported/global ones) only occur
+			 * once, most of the others only occur a small number of
+			 * times so it is worth doing a linear scan that avoids the
+			 * kallsyms_strcmp_symbol() call.
+			 * However some symbols occur a large number of times
+			 * (_sub_D_65535_0 is repeated 24610 times in an x86-64
+			 * allyesconfig, __func__.0 442 in a more normal kernel).
+			 * Avoid a long linear scan by returning to the binary
+			 * search if a short linear search is fruitless.
+			 */
+			unsigned int scan = 16;
+			while ((off & 1) && scan--)
+				off = get_symbol_name_offset(--mid);
+			if (!(off & 1))
 				break;
-			high++;
 		}
-		*end = high;
+		high = mid - 1;
 	}
 
-	return 0;
+	*start = mid;
+
+	return off;
 }
 
 /* Lookup the address for this symbol. Returns 0 if not found. */
@@ -257,9 +308,9 @@ unsigned long kallsyms_lookup_name(const char *name)
 	if (!*name)
 		return 0;
 
-	ret = kallsyms_lookup_names(name, &i, NULL);
-	if (!ret)
-		return kallsyms_sym_address(get_symbol_seq(i));
+	ret = kallsyms_lookup_names(name, &i);
+	if (ret >= 0)
+		return get_name_address(ret >> 1);
 
 	return module_kallsyms_lookup_name(name);
 }
@@ -289,17 +340,20 @@ int kallsyms_on_each_symbol(int (*fn)(void *, const char *, unsigned long),
 int kallsyms_on_each_match_symbol(int (*fn)(void *, unsigned long),
 				  const char *name, void *data)
 {
-	int ret;
-	unsigned int i, start, end;
+	int name_offset, ret;
+	unsigned int sym_number;
 
-	ret = kallsyms_lookup_names(name, &start, &end);
-	if (ret)
+	name_offset = kallsyms_lookup_names(name, &sym_number);
+	if (name_offset < 0)
 		return 0;
 
-	for (i = start; !ret && i <= end; i++) {
-		ret = fn(data, kallsyms_sym_address(get_symbol_seq(i)));
+	do {
+		ret = fn(data, get_name_address(name_offset >> 1));
+		if (ret)
+			break;
 		cond_resched();
-	}
+		name_offset = get_symbol_name_offset(++sym_number);
+	} while (name_offset & 1);
 
 	return ret;
 }
diff --git a/kernel/kallsyms_internal.h b/kernel/kallsyms_internal.h
index 81a867dbe57d..11fb0de92ede 100644
--- a/kernel/kallsyms_internal.h
+++ b/kernel/kallsyms_internal.h
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ extern const char kallsyms_token_table[];
 extern const u16 kallsyms_token_index[];
 
 extern const unsigned int kallsyms_markers[];
-extern const u8 kallsyms_seqs_of_names[];
+
+/* Although constant, size is volatile for better code generation. */
+extern struct {
+	volatile unsigned int size;	/* 24 or 32 */
+	unsigned char offs[];		/* int:24[] or int:32[] */
+} kallsyms_offs_of_names;
 
 #endif // LINUX_KALLSYMS_INTERNAL_H_
diff --git a/scripts/kallsyms.c b/scripts/kallsyms.c
index 74db751600b4..930ec27a53c0 100644
--- a/scripts/kallsyms.c
+++ b/scripts/kallsyms.c
@@ -403,7 +403,7 @@ static void sort_symbols_by_name(void)
 
 static void write_src(void)
 {
-	unsigned int i, k, len, off, seq;
+	unsigned int i, k, len, off, off_size, table_size;
 	unsigned int best_idx[256];
 	unsigned int *markers, markers_cnt;
 	unsigned long bin_offset = 0;
@@ -453,7 +453,7 @@ static void write_src(void)
 		unsigned char len[2];
 
 		se = table[i];
-		se->seq = i;
+		se->seq = off;
 
 		/* The length must be less than that of the original symbol. */
 		if (!se->len || se->len > KSYM_NAME_LEN)
@@ -485,7 +485,7 @@ static void write_src(void)
 			if ((i & 0xFF) == 0)
 				markers[i >> 8] = off;
 
-			printf("\t.byte\t%u", len[0]);
+			printf("\t/* n:%u */\t.byte\t%u", off, len[0]);
 			if (len_len == 2)
 				printf(",%u", len[1]);
 
@@ -500,6 +500,7 @@ static void write_src(void)
 		memcpy(se->sym, buf, se_len + 1);
 	}
 	write_incbin(&bin_offset, off);
+	table_size = off;
 	printf(".size kallsyms_names, . - kallsyms_names\n");
 	printf("\n");
 
@@ -560,7 +561,7 @@ static void write_src(void)
 			       out_bin_file ? '\n' : '\t');
 		}
 		if (!out_bin_file)
-			printf("/* %c %s */\n", table[i]->sym[0], table[i]->sym + 1);
+			printf("/* n:%u %c %s */\n", table[i]->seq, table[i]->sym[0], table[i]->sym + 1);
 	}
 	printf(".size kallsyms_offsets, . - kallsyms_offsets\n");
 	printf("\n");
@@ -570,23 +571,41 @@ static void write_src(void)
 	sort_symbols_by_name();
 	stamp("sort by name");
 
-	output_label("kallsyms_seqs_of_names");
-	write_incbin_header("seq_of_names", &bin_offset);
+	off_size = table_size < (1u << 23) ? 24 : 32;
+	output_label("kallsyms_offs_of_names");
+	printf("\t.long\t%u\n", off_size);
+	write_incbin_header("offs_of_names", &bin_offset);
 	for (i = 0; i < table_cnt; i++) {
 		se = table[i];
-		seq = se->seq;
+		off = se->seq << 1;
+		if (i && se->len == table[i - 1]->len &&
+		    !memcmp(se->sym + 1, table[i - 1]->sym + 1, se->len - 1))
+			/* Mark that this is a duplicate of the previous symbol */
+			off |= 1;
 		if (out_bin_file) {
-			unsigned int seq_be = htobe32(seq);
-			fwrite((char *)&seq_be + 1, 1, 3, out_bin_file);
+			unsigned int off_te = big_endian ? htobe32(off) >> (32 - off_size): htole32(off);
+			fwrite(&off_te, 1, off_size / 8 , out_bin_file);
 		} else {
-			/* The three spaces before the tab line up the comments */
-			printf("\t.byte\t%u,%u,%u   \t/* %8d %c %s */\n",
-				seq >> 16, (seq >> 8) & 0xff, seq & 0xff,
-				seq, se->sym[0], se->sym + 1);
+			if (off_size == 32) {
+				printf("\t.long\t%#4x", off);
+			} else {
+				if (big_endian)
+					off = __builtin_bswap32(off) >> 8;
+				/* The trailing three spaces line up the comments */
+				printf("\t.byte\t%u,%u,%u   ",
+					off & 0xff, (off >> 8) & 0xff, off >> 16);
+			}
+			printf("\t/* n:%-8d %c %s */\n",
+				se->seq, se->sym[0], se->sym + 1);
 		}
 	}
-	write_incbin(&bin_offset, table_cnt * 3);
-	printf(".size kallsyms_seqs_of_names, . - kallsyms_seqs_of_names\n");
+	write_incbin(&bin_offset, table_cnt * (off_size / 8));
+	/* Add a terminator without the 'duplicate' flag. */
+	if (off_size == 24)
+		printf("\t.byte\t0,0,0\n");
+	else
+		printf("\t.long\t0\n");
+	printf(".size kallsyms_offs_of_names, . - kallsyms_offs_of_names\n");
 
 	stamp("write name index");
 
-- 
2.39.5


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-11-11 11:59 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-11-11 11:58 [PATCH v3 next 00/13] kallsyms: optimise symbol search by name David Laight
2026-11-11 11:58 ` [PATCH v3 next 01/13] scripts/kallsyms: Avoid overrunning on-stack buffer David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 02/13] scripts/kallsyms: Improve error reporting David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 03/13] scripts/elf-parse: add elf_map_big_endian() helper David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 04/13] scripts/kallsyms: make use of binary data output optional David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 05/13] kallsyms: Fix selftest startup delay David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 06/13] kallsyms: Improve selftest test_perf_kallsyms_lookup_name() output David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 07/13] kallsyms: Match compressed tokens on the fly during binary search David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` David Laight [this message]
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 09/13] kallsyms: Add a kernel parameter to change the kallsyms_markers[] density David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 10/13] scripts/kallsyms: Keep full expansion of tokens David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 11/13] scripts/kallsyms: Optimise compress_symbols() David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 12/13] scripts/kallsyms: Reuse tokens that have no references David Laight
2026-11-11 11:59 ` [PATCH v3 next 13/13] scripts/kallsyms: Reuse little-used compression tokens David Laight

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