[RFC PATCH 1/9] kernel: add support for patchable function pointers

[Ard Biesheuvel]

On 5 October 2018 at 15:57, Peter Zijlstra <peterz at infradead.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2018 at 10:13:25AM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
>> Add a function pointer abstraction that can be implemented by the arch
>> in a manner that avoids the downsides of function pointers, i.e., the
>> fact that they are typically located in a writable data section, and
>> their vulnerability to Spectre like defects.
>>
>> The FFP (or fast function pointer) is callable as a function, since
>> the generic incarnation is simply that. However, due to the fact that
>> C does not distinguish between functions and function pointers at the
>> call site, the architecture can instead emit it as a patchable sequence
>> of instructions consisting of ordinary branches.
>
> This is basically a static_key, except for indirection function calls?

Yes, that is why I put you on cc :-)

> So why not call the thing static_func or static_call or something like
> that?

Yep that sounds better.