Some unit tests intentionally trigger warning backtraces by passing bad parameters to kernel API functions. Such unit tests typically check the return value from such calls, not the existence of the warning backtrace.
Such intentionally generated warning backtraces are neither desirable nor useful for a number of reasons: - They can result in overlooked real problems. - A warning that suddenly starts to show up in unit tests needs to be investigated and has to be marked to be ignored, for example by adjusting filter scripts. Such filters are ad hoc because there is no real standard format for warnings. On top of that, such filter scripts would require constant maintenance.
One option to address the problem would be to add messages such as "expected warning backtraces start/end here" to the kernel log. However, that would again require filter scripts, might result in missing real problematic warning backtraces triggered while the test is running, and the irrelevant backtrace(s) would still clog the kernel log.
Solve the problem by providing a means to identify and suppress specific warning backtraces while executing test code. Support suppressing multiple backtraces while at the same time limiting changes to generic code to the absolute minimum.
Overview: Patch#1 Introduces the suppression infrastructure. Patch#2 Mitigate the impact at WARN*() sites. Patch#3 Adds selftests to validate the functionality. Patch#4 Demonstrates real-world usage in the DRM subsystem. Patch#5 Documents the new API and usage guidelines.
Design Notes: The objective is to suppress unwanted WARN*() generated messages.
Although most major architectures share common bug handling via `lib/bug.c` and `report_bug()`, some minor or legacy architectures still rely on their own platform-specific handling. This divergence must be considered in any such feature. Additionally, a key challenge in implementing this feature is the fragmentation of `WARN*()` messages emission: specific part in the macro, common with BUG*() part in the exception handler. As a result, any intervention to suppress the message must occur before the illegal instruction.
Lessons from the Previous Attempt In earlier iterations, suppression logic was added inside the `__report_bug()` function to intercept WARN*() messages not producing messages in the macro. To implement the check in the check in the bug handler code, two strategies were considered:
* Strategy #1: Use `kallsyms` to infer the originating functionid, namely a pointer to the function. Since in any case, the user interface relies on function names, they must be translated in addresses at suppression- time or at check-time. Assuming to translate at suppression-time, the `kallsyms` subsystem needs to be used to determine the symbol address from the name, and again to produce the functionid from `bugaddr`. This approach proved unreliable due to compiler-induced transformations such as inlining, cloning, and code fragmentation. Attempts to preventing them is also unconvenient because several `WARN()` sites are in functions intentionally declared as `__always_inline`.
* Strategy #2: Store function name `__func__` in `struct bug_entry` in the `__bug_table`. This implementation was used in the previous version. However, `__func__` is a compiler-generated symbol, which complicates relocation and linking in position-independent code. Workarounds such as storing offsets from `.rodata` or embedding string literals directly into the table would have significantly either increased complexity or increase the __bug_table size. Additionally, architectures not using the unified `BUG()` path would still require ad-hoc handling. Because current WARN*() message production strategy, a few WARN*() macros still need a check to suppress the part of the message produced in the macro itself.
Current Proposal: Check Directly in the `WARN()` Macros. This avoids the need for function symbol resolution or ELF section modification. Suppression is implemented directly in the `WARN*()` macros.
A helper function, `__kunit_is_suppressed_warning()`, is used to determine whether suppression applies. It is marked as `noinstr`, since some `WARN*()` sites reside in non-instrumentable sections. As it uses `strcmp`, a `noinstr` version of `strcmp` was introduced. The implementation is deliberately simple and avoids architecture-specific optimizations to preserve portability. Since this mechanism compares function names and is intended for test usage only, performance is not a primary concern.
This series is based on the RFC patch and subsequent discussion at https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-kselftest/patch/02546e59-1afe-4b0... and offers a more comprehensive solution of the problem discussed there.
Changes since RFC: - Introduced CONFIG_KUNIT_SUPPRESS_BACKTRACE - Minor cleanups and bug fixes - Added support for all affected architectures - Added support for counting suppressed warnings - Added unit tests using those counters - Added patch to suppress warning backtraces in dev_addr_lists tests
Changes since v1: - Rebased to v6.9-rc1 - Added Tested-by:, Acked-by:, and Reviewed-by: tags [I retained those tags since there have been no functional changes] - Introduced KUNIT_SUPPRESS_BACKTRACE configuration option, enabled by default.
Changes since v2: - Rebased to v6.9-rc2 - Added comments to drm warning suppression explaining why it is needed. - Added patch to move conditional code in arch/sh/include/asm/bug.h to avoid kerneldoc warning - Added architecture maintainers to Cc: for architecture specific patches - No functional changes
Changes since v3: - Rebased to v6.14-rc6 - Dropped net: "kunit: Suppress lock warning noise at end of dev_addr_lists tests" since 3db3b62955cd6d73afde05a17d7e8e106695c3b9 - Added __kunit_ and KUNIT_ prefixes. - Tested on interessed architectures.
Changes since v4: - Rebased to v6.15-rc7 - Dropped all code in __report_bug() - Moved all checks in WARN*() macros. - Dropped all architecture specific code. - Made __kunit_is_suppressed_warning nice to noinstr functions.
Alessandro Carminati (2): bug/kunit: Core support for suppressing warning backtraces bug/kunit: Suppressing warning backtraces reduced impact on WARN*() sites
Guenter Roeck (3): Add unit tests to verify that warning backtrace suppression works. drm: Suppress intentional warning backtraces in scaling unit tests kunit: Add documentation for warning backtrace suppression API
Documentation/dev-tools/kunit/usage.rst | 30 ++++++- drivers/gpu/drm/tests/drm_rect_test.c | 16 ++++ include/asm-generic/bug.h | 48 +++++++---- include/kunit/bug.h | 62 ++++++++++++++ include/kunit/test.h | 1 + lib/kunit/Kconfig | 9 ++ lib/kunit/Makefile | 9 +- lib/kunit/backtrace-suppression-test.c | 105 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ lib/kunit/bug.c | 54 ++++++++++++ 9 files changed, 316 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-) create mode 100644 include/kunit/bug.h create mode 100644 lib/kunit/backtrace-suppression-test.c create mode 100644 lib/kunit/bug.c