On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 04:36:13PM -0500, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 04:34:18PM -0500, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 04:25:19PM -0500, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 02:02:09PM -0400, Jason Baron wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > If I have kernel source S, apply a kpatch module A, but then want to
> > > > 'revert' parts of A, by applying a cumulative patch B, such that some
> > > > functions are no longer different from source kernel S, how do I do 
> > > > that?
> > > > 
> > > > It seems like there are a few options:
> > > > 
> > > > 1) remove or disable module A, then load module B. This leaves an
> > > > un-patched window and rmmod isn't possible without reliable backtrace.
> > > > I'm also not sure this works with the kpatch 'stacking'.
> > > > 
> > > > 2) modify patch B such that any functions that are initially unchanged
> > > > from S, are in fact modified but modified in an acceptable way.
> > > > 
> > > > 3) maybe the kernel can understand that are not added to or modified by
> > > > a cumulative patch should be reverted back to their original state?
> > > > 
> > > > #3 seems to me to be the cleanest...but maybe I'm missing something...
> > > 
> > > Hi Jason,
> > > 
> > > We don't have a mechanism for reverting patches, so #2 will probably be
> > > your best bet.
> > 
> > Sorry, that was both poorly worded and incorrect, let me try again :-)
> > 
> > I meant to say we don't have a mechanism for atomically replacing the
> > entire contents of patch A with patch B.
> > 
> > But I was mistaken.  Technically we do have a "replace" mechanism.  It
> > was deprecated, see https://github.com/dynup/kpatch/issues/456 for more
> > details.  But it should work in theory if you load the patch module
> > manually with insmod and the 'replace=1' argument.  We had some issues
> > with it though, so #2 might be a safer bet.
> 
> And I should note that the replace only works with kpatch.ko, not with
> livepatch.  We may add replace support to livepatch eventually.

FYI, I'm proposing a new KPATCH_REVERT_FUNCTION macro which makes this a
little easier, so you can use the macro instead of making a trivial
change to the function:

  https://github.com/dynup/kpatch/pull/715

-- 
Josh

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