Re: [PATCH 02/16] x86/dumpstack: Add get_stack_info() support for the SYSENTER stack

From: Josh Poimboeuf
Date: Mon Nov 20 2017 - 16:55:58 EST


On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 01:30:12PM -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 01:07:16PM -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> >> >> but, more importantly, the OOPS unwinder will just bail without this
> >> >> patch. With the patch, we get a valid unwind, except that everything
> >> >> has a ? in front.
> >> >
> >> > Hm. I can't even fathom how that's possible. Are you talking about the
> >> > "unwind from NMI to SYSENTER stack" path? Or any unwind to a syscall?
> >> > Either way I'm baffled... If the unwinder only encounters the SYSENTER
> >> > stack at the end, how could that cause everything beforehand to have a
> >> > question mark?
> >>
> >> I mean that, if I put a ud2 or other bug in the code that runs on the
> >> SYSENTER stack, without this patch, I get a totally blank call trace.
> >
> > I would expect a blank call trace either way...
>
> Try making sync_regs use a few kB of stack space or, better yet, call
> a non-inlined function that uses too much stack.

You mean overflow the exception stack? I still don't see how that would
do it.

If you could show a specific example, with splats from before/after,
that would be helpful. Because I still have no idea how this patch
could possibly help.

--
Josh