This commit adds an initial documentation for !MMU mode of UML. Signed-off-by: Hajime Tazaki <thehaj...@gmail.com> --- Documentation/virt/uml/nommu-uml.rst | 177 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MAINTAINERS | 1 + 2 files changed, 178 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/virt/uml/nommu-uml.rst
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/uml/nommu-uml.rst b/Documentation/virt/uml/nommu-uml.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..a98bfd9d2f38 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/virt/uml/nommu-uml.rst @@ -0,0 +1,177 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +UML has been built with CONFIG_MMU since day 0. The patchset +introduces the nommu mode on UML in a different angle from what Linux +Kernel Library tried. + +.. contents:: :local: + +What is it for ? +================ + +- Alleviate syscall hook overhead implemented with ptrace(2) +- To exercises nommu code over UML (and over KUnit) +- Less dependency to host facilities + + +How it works ? +============== + +To illustrate how this feature works, the below shows how syscalls are +called under nommu/UML environment. + +- boot kernel, install seccomp filter if ``syscall`` instructions are + called from userspace memory based on the address of instruction + pointer +- (userspace starts) +- calls ``vfork``/``execve`` syscalls +- ``SIGSYS`` signal raised, handler calls syscall entry point ``__kernel_vsyscall`` +- call handler function in ``sys_call_table[]`` and follow how UML syscall + works. +- return to userspace + + +What are the differences from MMU-full UML ? +============================================ + +The current nommu implementation adds 3 different functions which +MMU-full UML doesn't have: + +- kernel address space can directly be accessible from userspace + - so, ``uaccess()`` always returns 1 + - generic implementation of memcpy/strcpy/futex is also used +- alternate syscall entrypoint without ptrace +- alternate syscall hook + - hook syscall by seccomp filter + +With those modifications, it allows us to use unmodified userspace +binaries with nommu UML. + + +History +======= + +This feature was originally introduced by Ricardo Koller at Open +Source Summit NA 2020, then integrated with the syscall translation +functionality with the clean up to the original code. + +Building and run +================ + +:: + + make ARCH=um x86_64_nommu_defconfig + make ARCH=um + +will build UML with ``CONFIG_MMU=n`` applied. + +Kunit tests can run with the following command:: + + ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kconfig_add CONFIG_MMU=n + +To run a typical Linux distribution, we need nommu-aware userspace. +We can use a stock version of Alpine Linux with nommu-built version of +busybox and musl-libc. + + +Preparing root filesystem +========================= + +nommu UML requires to use a specific standard library which is aware +of nommu kernel. We have tested custom-build musl-libc and busybox, +both of which have built-in support for nommu kernels. + +There are no available Linux distributions for nommu under x86_64 +architecture, so we need to prepare our own image for the root +filesystem. We use Alpine Linux as a base distribution and replace +busybox and musl-libc on top of that. The following are the step to +prepare the filesystem for the quick start:: + + container_id=$(docker create ghcr.io/thehajime/alpine:3.20.3-um-nommu) + docker start $container_id + docker wait $container_id + docker export $container_id > alpine.tar + docker rm $container_id + + mnt=$(mktemp -d) + dd if=/dev/zero of=alpine.ext4 bs=1 count=0 seek=1G + sudo chmod og+wr "alpine.ext4" + yes 2>/dev/null | mkfs.ext4 "alpine.ext4" || true + sudo mount "alpine.ext4" $mnt + sudo tar -xf alpine.tar -C $mnt + sudo umount $mnt + +This will create a file image, ``alpine.ext4``, which contains busybox +and musl with nommu build on the Alpine Linux root filesystem. The +file can be specified to the argument ``ubd0=`` to the UML command line:: + + ./vmlinux ubd0=./alpine.ext4 rw mem=1024m loglevel=8 init=/sbin/init + +We plan to upstream apk packages for busybox and musl so that we can +follow the proper procedure to set up the root filesystem. + + +Quick start with docker +======================= + +There is a docker image that you can quickly start with a simple step:: + + docker run -it -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm --rm ghcr.io/thehajime/alpine:3.20.3-um-nommu + +This will launch a UML instance with an pre-configured root filesystem. + +Benchmark +========= + +The below shows an example of performance measurement conducted with +lmbench and (self-crafted) getpid benchmark (with v6.12-rc2 uml/next +tree). + +.. csv-table:: lmbench (usec) + :header: ,native,um,um-nommu(s) + + select-10 ,0.5544,29.7143,2.8920 + select-100 ,2.3992,27.7262,3.7794 + select-1000 ,20.4708,42.0885,12.6920 + syscall ,0.1734,26.2471,2.6070 + read ,0.3433,29.8828,2.6923 + write ,0.2866,25.9753,2.6925 + stat ,1.9195,40.1164,3.1813 + open/close ,3.8657,63.4730,6.2049 + fork+sh ,1161.1111,5216.5000,462.3077 + fork+execve ,536.5263,2117.0000,131.0633 + +.. csv-table:: do_getpid bench (nsec) + :header: ,native,um,um-nommu(s) + + getpid, 172 , 26807 , 2614 + +Limitations +=========== + +generic nommu limitations +------------------------- +Since this port is a kernel of nommu architecture so, the +implementation inherits the characteristics of other nommu kernels +(riscv, arm, etc), described below. + +- vfork(2) should be used instead of fork(2) +- ELF loader only loads PIE (position independent executable) binaries +- processes share the address space among others +- mmap(2) offers a subset of functionalities (e.g., unsupported + MMAP_FIXED) + +Thus, we have limited options to userspace programs. We have tested +Alpine Linux with musl-libc, which has a support nommu kernel. + +supported architecture +---------------------- +The current implementation of nommu UML only works on x86_64 SUBARCH. +We have not tested with 32-bit environment. + + +Further readings about NOMMU UML +================================ + +- NOMMU UML (original code by Ricardo Koller) + - https://static.sched.com/hosted_files/ossna2020/ec/kollerr_linux_um_nommu.pdf diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS index a097afd76ded..aaffff989580 100644 --- a/MAINTAINERS +++ b/MAINTAINERS @@ -24186,6 +24186,7 @@ USER-MODE LINUX (UML) M: Richard Weinberger <rich...@nod.at> M: Anton Ivanov <anton.iva...@cambridgegreys.com> M: Johannes Berg <johan...@sipsolutions.net> +M: Hajime Tazaki <thehaj...@gmail.com> L: linux-um@lists.infradead.org S: Maintained W: http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net -- 2.43.0
