Re: [PATCH v2 2/9] bpf/btf: tracing: Move finding func-proto API and getting func-param API to BTF

From: Alexei Starovoitov
Date: Tue Jul 18 2023 - 19:13:15 EST


On Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 4:03 PM Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 18 Jul 2023 10:11:01 -0700
> Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 6:56 AM Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, 18 Jul 2023 19:44:31 +0900
> > > Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > > > static const struct btf_param *find_btf_func_param(const char *funcname, s32 *nr,
> > > > > > bool tracepoint)
> > > > > > {
> > > > > > + struct btf *btf = traceprobe_get_btf();
> > > > >
> > > > > I found that traceprobe_get_btf() only returns the vmlinux's btf. But
> > > > > if the function is
> > > > > defined in a kernel module, we should get the module's btf.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Good catch! That should be a separated fix (or improvement?)
> > > > I think it's better to use btf_get() and btf_put(), and pass btf via
> > > > traceprobe_parse_context.
> > >
> > > Hmm, it seems that there is no exposed API to get the module's btf.
> > > Should I use btf_idr and btf_idr_lock directly to find the corresponding
> > > btf? If there isn't yet, I will add it too.
> >
> > There is bpf_find_btf_id.
> > Probably drop 'static' from it and use it.
>
> Thanks! BTW, that API seems to search BTF type info by name. If user want to
> specify a module name, do we need a new API? (Or expand the function to parse
> a module name in given name?)

We can allow users specify module name, but how would it help?
Do you want to allow static func names ?
But module name won't help. There can be many statics with the same name
in the module. Currently pahole filters out all ambiguous things in BTF.
Alan is working on better representation of statics in BTF.
The work is still in progress.

For now I don't see a need for an api to specify module, since it's not
a modifier that can be relied upon to disambiguate.
Hence bpf_find_btf_id that transparently searches across all should be enough.
At least it was enough for all of bpf use cases.