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1Assembler Annotations
2=====================
3
4Copyright (c) 2017-2019 Jiri Slaby
5
6This document describes the new macros for annotation of data and code in
7assembly. In particular, it contains information about ``SYM_FUNC_START``,
8``SYM_FUNC_END``, ``SYM_CODE_START``, and similar.
9
10Rationale
11---------
12Some code like entries, trampolines, or boot code needs to be written in
13assembly. The same as in C, such code is grouped into functions and
14accompanied with data. Standard assemblers do not force users into precisely
15marking these pieces as code, data, or even specifying their length.
16Nevertheless, assemblers provide developers with such annotations to aid
17debuggers throughout assembly. On top of that, developers also want to mark
18some functions as *global* in order to be visible outside of their translation
19units.
20
21Over time, the Linux kernel has adopted macros from various projects (like
22``binutils``) to facilitate such annotations. So for historic reasons,
23developers have been using ``ENTRY``, ``END``, ``ENDPROC``, and other
24annotations in assembly. Due to the lack of their documentation, the macros
25are used in rather wrong contexts at some locations. Clearly, ``ENTRY`` was
26intended to denote the beginning of global symbols (be it data or code).
27``END`` used to mark the end of data or end of special functions with
28*non-standard* calling convention. In contrast, ``ENDPROC`` should annotate
29only ends of *standard* functions.
30
31When these macros are used correctly, they help assemblers generate a nice
32object with both sizes and types set correctly. For example, the result of
33``arch/x86/lib/putuser.S``::
34
35 Num: Value Size Type Bind Vis Ndx Name
36 25: 0000000000000000 33 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT 1 __put_user_1
37 29: 0000000000000030 37 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT 1 __put_user_2
38 32: 0000000000000060 36 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT 1 __put_user_4
39 35: 0000000000000090 37 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT 1 __put_user_8
40
41This is not only important for debugging purposes. When there are properly
42annotated objects like this, tools can be run on them to generate more useful
43information. In particular, on properly annotated objects, ``objtool`` can be
44run to check and fix the object if needed. Currently, ``objtool`` can report
45missing frame pointer setup/destruction in functions. It can also
46automatically generate annotations for the ORC unwinder
47(Documentation/arch/x86/orc-unwinder.rst)
48for most code. Both of these are especially important to support reliable
49stack traces which are in turn necessary for kernel live patching
50(Documentation/livepatch/livepatch.rst).
51
52Caveat and Discussion
53---------------------
54As one might realize, there were only three macros previously. That is indeed
55insufficient to cover all the combinations of cases:
56
57* standard/non-standard function
58* code/data
59* global/local symbol
60
61There was a discussion_ and instead of extending the current ``ENTRY/END*``
62macros, it was decided that brand new macros should be introduced instead::
63
64 So how about using macro names that actually show the purpose, instead
65 of importing all the crappy, historic, essentially randomly chosen
66 debug symbol macro names from the binutils and older kernels?
67
68.. _discussion: https://lore.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
69
70Macros Description
71------------------
72
73The new macros are prefixed with the ``SYM_`` prefix and can be divided into
74three main groups:
75
761. ``SYM_FUNC_*`` -- to annotate C-like functions. This means functions with
77 standard C calling conventions. For example, on x86, this means that the
78 stack contains a return address at the predefined place and a return from
79 the function can happen in a standard way. When frame pointers are enabled,
80 save/restore of frame pointer shall happen at the start/end of a function,
81 respectively, too.
82
83 Checking tools like ``objtool`` should ensure such marked functions conform
84 to these rules. The tools can also easily annotate these functions with
85 debugging information (like *ORC data*) automatically.
86
872. ``SYM_CODE_*`` -- special functions called with special stack. Be it
88 interrupt handlers with special stack content, trampolines, or startup
89 functions.
90
91 Checking tools mostly ignore checking of these functions. But some debug
92 information still can be generated automatically. For correct debug data,
93 this code needs hints like ``UNWIND_HINT_REGS`` provided by developers.
94
953. ``SYM_DATA*`` -- obviously data belonging to ``.data`` sections and not to
96 ``.text``. Data do not contain instructions, so they have to be treated
97 specially by the tools: they should not treat the bytes as instructions,
98 nor assign any debug information to them.
99
100Instruction Macros
101~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
102This section covers ``SYM_FUNC_*`` and ``SYM_CODE_*`` enumerated above.
103
104``objtool`` requires that all code must be contained in an ELF symbol. Symbol
105names that have a ``.L`` prefix do not emit symbol table entries. ``.L``
106prefixed symbols can be used within a code region, but should be avoided for
107denoting a range of code via ``SYM_*_START/END`` annotations.
108
109* ``SYM_FUNC_START`` and ``SYM_FUNC_START_LOCAL`` are supposed to be **the
110 most frequent markings**. They are used for functions with standard calling
111 conventions -- global and local. Like in C, they both align the functions to
112 architecture specific ``__ALIGN`` bytes. There are also ``_NOALIGN`` variants
113 for special cases where developers do not want this implicit alignment.
114
115 ``SYM_FUNC_START_WEAK`` and ``SYM_FUNC_START_WEAK_NOALIGN`` markings are
116 also offered as an assembler counterpart to the *weak* attribute known from
117 C.
118
119 All of these **shall** be coupled with ``SYM_FUNC_END``. First, it marks
120 the sequence of instructions as a function and computes its size to the
121 generated object file. Second, it also eases checking and processing such
122 object files as the tools can trivially find exact function boundaries.
123
124 So in most cases, developers should write something like in the following
125 example, having some asm instructions in between the macros, of course::
126
127 SYM_FUNC_START(memset)
128 ... asm insns ...
129 SYM_FUNC_END(memset)
130
131 In fact, this kind of annotation corresponds to the now deprecated ``ENTRY``
132 and ``ENDPROC`` macros.
133
134* ``SYM_FUNC_ALIAS``, ``SYM_FUNC_ALIAS_LOCAL``, and ``SYM_FUNC_ALIAS_WEAK`` can
135 be used to define multiple names for a function. The typical use is::
136
137 SYM_FUNC_START(__memset)
138 ... asm insns ...
139 SYN_FUNC_END(__memset)
140 SYM_FUNC_ALIAS(memset, __memset)
141
142 In this example, one can call ``__memset`` or ``memset`` with the same
143 result, except the debug information for the instructions is generated to
144 the object file only once -- for the non-``ALIAS`` case.
145
146* ``SYM_CODE_START`` and ``SYM_CODE_START_LOCAL`` should be used only in
147 special cases -- if you know what you are doing. This is used exclusively
148 for interrupt handlers and similar where the calling convention is not the C
149 one. ``_NOALIGN`` variants exist too. The use is the same as for the ``FUNC``
150 category above::
151
152 SYM_CODE_START_LOCAL(bad_put_user)
153 ... asm insns ...
154 SYM_CODE_END(bad_put_user)
155
156 Again, every ``SYM_CODE_START*`` **shall** be coupled by ``SYM_CODE_END``.
157
158 To some extent, this category corresponds to deprecated ``ENTRY`` and
159 ``END``. Except ``END`` had several other meanings too.
160
161* ``SYM_INNER_LABEL*`` is used to denote a label inside some
162 ``SYM_{CODE,FUNC}_START`` and ``SYM_{CODE,FUNC}_END``. They are very similar
163 to C labels, except they can be made global. An example of use::
164
165 SYM_CODE_START(ftrace_caller)
166 /* save_mcount_regs fills in first two parameters */
167 ...
168
169 SYM_INNER_LABEL(ftrace_caller_op_ptr, SYM_L_GLOBAL)
170 /* Load the ftrace_ops into the 3rd parameter */
171 ...
172
173 SYM_INNER_LABEL(ftrace_call, SYM_L_GLOBAL)
174 call ftrace_stub
175 ...
176 retq
177 SYM_CODE_END(ftrace_caller)
178
179Data Macros
180~~~~~~~~~~~
181Similar to instructions, there is a couple of macros to describe data in the
182assembly.
183
184* ``SYM_DATA_START`` and ``SYM_DATA_START_LOCAL`` mark the start of some data
185 and shall be used in conjunction with either ``SYM_DATA_END``, or
186 ``SYM_DATA_END_LABEL``. The latter adds also a label to the end, so that
187 people can use ``lstack`` and (local) ``lstack_end`` in the following
188 example::
189
190 SYM_DATA_START_LOCAL(lstack)
191 .skip 4096
192 SYM_DATA_END_LABEL(lstack, SYM_L_LOCAL, lstack_end)
193
194* ``SYM_DATA`` and ``SYM_DATA_LOCAL`` are variants for simple, mostly one-line
195 data::
196
197 SYM_DATA(HEAP, .long rm_heap)
198 SYM_DATA(heap_end, .long rm_stack)
199
200 In the end, they expand to ``SYM_DATA_START`` with ``SYM_DATA_END``
201 internally.
202
203Support Macros
204~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
205All the above reduce themselves to some invocation of ``SYM_START``,
206``SYM_END``, or ``SYM_ENTRY`` at last. Normally, developers should avoid using
207these.
208
209Further, in the above examples, one could see ``SYM_L_LOCAL``. There are also
210``SYM_L_GLOBAL`` and ``SYM_L_WEAK``. All are intended to denote linkage of a
211symbol marked by them. They are used either in ``_LABEL`` variants of the
212earlier macros, or in ``SYM_START``.
213
214
215Overriding Macros
216~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
217Architecture can also override any of the macros in their own
218``asm/linkage.h``, including macros specifying the type of a symbol
219(``SYM_T_FUNC``, ``SYM_T_OBJECT``, and ``SYM_T_NONE``). As every macro
220described in this file is surrounded by ``#ifdef`` + ``#endif``, it is enough
221to define the macros differently in the aforementioned architecture-dependent
222header.