aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLibravatar Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800
committerLibravatar Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800
commit5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2 (patch)
treecc5c2d0a898769fd59549594fedb3ee6f84e59a0 /Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst
downloadlinux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.tar.gz
linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.zip
Merge tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-nextgrafted
Pull networking updates from Jakub Kicinski: "Core: - Add dedicated kmem_cache for typical/small skb->head, avoid having to access struct page at kfree time, and improve memory use. - Introduce sysctl to set default RPS configuration for new netdevs. - Define Netlink protocol specification format which can be used to describe messages used by each family and auto-generate parsers. Add tools for generating kernel data structures and uAPI headers. - Expose all net/core sysctls inside netns. - Remove 4s sleep in netpoll if carrier is instantly detected on boot. - Add configurable limit of MDB entries per port, and port-vlan. - Continue populating drop reasons throughout the stack. - Retire a handful of legacy Qdiscs and classifiers. Protocols: - Support IPv4 big TCP (TSO frames larger than 64kB). - Add IP_LOCAL_PORT_RANGE socket option, to control local port range on socket by socket basis. - Track and report in procfs number of MPTCP sockets used. - Support mixing IPv4 and IPv6 flows in the in-kernel MPTCP path manager. - IPv6: don't check net.ipv6.route.max_size and rely on garbage collection to free memory (similarly to IPv4). - Support Penultimate Segment Pop (PSP) flavor in SRv6 (RFC8986). - ICMP: add per-rate limit counters. - Add support for user scanning requests in ieee802154. - Remove static WEP support. - Support minimal Wi-Fi 7 Extremely High Throughput (EHT) rate reporting. - WiFi 7 EHT channel puncturing support (client & AP). BPF: - Add a rbtree data structure following the "next-gen data structure" precedent set by recently added linked list, that is, by using kfunc + kptr instead of adding a new BPF map type. - Expose XDP hints via kfuncs with initial support for RX hash and timestamp metadata. - Add BPF_F_NO_TUNNEL_KEY extension to bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key to better support decap on GRE tunnel devices not operating in collect metadata. - Improve x86 JIT's codegen for PROBE_MEM runtime error checks. - Remove the need for trace_printk_lock for bpf_trace_printk and bpf_trace_vprintk helpers. - Extend libbpf's bpf_tracing.h support for tracing arguments of kprobes/uprobes and syscall as a special case. - Significantly reduce the search time for module symbols by livepatch and BPF. - Enable cpumasks to be used as kptrs, which is useful for tracing programs tracking which tasks end up running on which CPUs in different time intervals. - Add support for BPF trampoline on s390x and riscv64. - Add capability to export the XDP features supported by the NIC. - Add __bpf_kfunc tag for marking kernel functions as kfuncs. - Add cgroup.memory=nobpf kernel parameter option to disable BPF memory accounting for container environments. Netfilter: - Remove the CLUSTERIP target. It has been marked as obsolete for years, and we still have WARN splats wrt races of the out-of-band /proc interface installed by this target. - Add 'destroy' commands to nf_tables. They are identical to the existing 'delete' commands, but do not return an error if the referenced object (set, chain, rule...) did not exist. Driver API: - Improve cpumask_local_spread() locality to help NICs set the right IRQ affinity on AMD platforms. - Separate C22 and C45 MDIO bus transactions more clearly. - Introduce new DCB table to control DSCP rewrite on egress. - Support configuration of Physical Layer Collision Avoidance (PLCA) Reconciliation Sublayer (RS) (802.3cg-2019). Modern version of shared medium Ethernet. - Support for MAC Merge layer (IEEE 802.3-2018 clause 99). Allowing preemption of low priority frames by high priority frames. - Add support for controlling MACSec offload using netlink SET. - Rework devlink instance refcounts to allow registration and de-registration under the instance lock. Split the code into multiple files, drop some of the unnecessarily granular locks and factor out common parts of netlink operation handling. - Add TX frame aggregation parameters (for USB drivers). - Add a new attr TCA_EXT_WARN_MSG to report TC (offload) warning messages with notifications for debug. - Allow offloading of UDP NEW connections via act_ct. - Add support for per action HW stats in TC. - Support hardware miss to TC action (continue processing in SW from a specific point in the action chain). - Warn if old Wireless Extension user space interface is used with modern cfg80211/mac80211 drivers. Do not support Wireless Extensions for Wi-Fi 7 devices at all. Everyone should switch to using nl80211 interface instead. - Improve the CAN bit timing configuration. Use extack to return error messages directly to user space, update the SJW handling, including the definition of a new default value that will benefit CAN-FD controllers, by increasing their oscillator tolerance. New hardware / drivers: - Ethernet: - nVidia BlueField-3 support (control traffic driver) - Ethernet support for imx93 SoCs - Motorcomm yt8531 gigabit Ethernet PHY - onsemi NCN26000 10BASE-T1S PHY (with support for PLCA) - Microchip LAN8841 PHY (incl. cable diagnostics and PTP) - Amlogic gxl MDIO mux - WiFi: - RealTek RTL8188EU (rtl8xxxu) - Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 devices (ath12k) - CAN: - Renesas R-Car V4H Drivers: - Bluetooth: - Set Per Platform Antenna Gain (PPAG) for Intel controllers. - Ethernet NICs: - Intel (1G, igc): - support TSN / Qbv / packet scheduling features of i226 model - Intel (100G, ice): - use GNSS subsystem instead of TTY - multi-buffer XDP support - extend support for GPIO pins to E823 devices - nVidia/Mellanox: - update the shared buffer configuration on PFC commands - implement PTP adjphase function for HW offset control - TC support for Geneve and GRE with VF tunnel offload - more efficient crypto key management method - multi-port eswitch support - Netronome/Corigine: - add DCB IEEE support - support IPsec offloading for NFP3800 - Freescale/NXP (enetc): - support XDP_REDIRECT for XDP non-linear buffers - improve reconfig, avoid link flap and waiting for idle - support MAC Merge layer - Other NICs: - sfc/ef100: add basic devlink support for ef100 - ionic: rx_push mode operation (writing descriptors via MMIO) - bnxt: use the auxiliary bus abstraction for RDMA - r8169: disable ASPM and reset bus in case of tx timeout - cpsw: support QSGMII mode for J721e CPSW9G - cpts: support pulse-per-second output - ngbe: add an mdio bus driver - usbnet: optimize usbnet_bh() by avoiding unnecessary queuing - r8152: handle devices with FW with NCM support - amd-xgbe: support 10Mbps, 2.5GbE speeds and rx-adaptation - virtio-net: support multi buffer XDP - virtio/vsock: replace virtio_vsock_pkt with sk_buff - tsnep: XDP support - Ethernet high-speed switches: - nVidia/Mellanox (mlxsw): - add support for latency TLV (in FW control messages) - Microchip (sparx5): - separate explicit and implicit traffic forwarding rules, make the implicit rules always active - add support for egress DSCP rewrite - IS0 VCAP support (Ingress Classification) - IS2 VCAP filters (protos, L3 addrs, L4 ports, flags, ToS etc.) - ES2 VCAP support (Egress Access Control) - support for Per-Stream Filtering and Policing (802.1Q, 8.6.5.1) - Ethernet embedded switches: - Marvell (mv88e6xxx): - add MAB (port auth) offload support - enable PTP receive for mv88e6390 - NXP (ocelot): - support MAC Merge layer - support for the the vsc7512 internal copper phys - Microchip: - lan9303: convert to PHYLINK - lan966x: support TC flower filter statistics - lan937x: PTP support for KSZ9563/KSZ8563 and LAN937x - lan937x: support Credit Based Shaper configuration - ksz9477: support Energy Efficient Ethernet - other: - qca8k: convert to regmap read/write API, use bulk operations - rswitch: Improve TX timestamp accuracy - Intel WiFi (iwlwifi): - EHT (Wi-Fi 7) rate reporting - STEP equalizer support: transfer some STEP (connection to radio on platforms with integrated wifi) related parameters from the BIOS to the firmware. - Qualcomm 802.11ax WiFi (ath11k): - IPQ5018 support - Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) responder role support - channel 177 support - MediaTek WiFi (mt76): - per-PHY LED support - mt7996: EHT (Wi-Fi 7) support - Wireless Ethernet Dispatch (WED) reset support - switch to using page pool allocator - RealTek WiFi (rtw89): - support new version of Bluetooth co-existance - Mobile: - rmnet: support TX aggregation" * tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-next: (1872 commits) page_pool: add a comment explaining the fragment counter usage net: ethtool: fix __ethtool_dev_mm_supported() implementation ethtool: pse-pd: Fix double word in comments xsk: add linux/vmalloc.h to xsk.c sefltests: netdevsim: wait for devlink instance after netns removal selftest: fib_tests: Always cleanup before exit net/mlx5e: Align IPsec ASO result memory to be as required by hardware net/mlx5e: TC, Set CT miss to the specific ct action instance net/mlx5e: Rename CHAIN_TO_REG to MAPPED_OBJ_TO_REG net/mlx5: Refactor tc miss handling to a single function net/mlx5: Kconfig: Make tc offload depend on tc skb extension net/sched: flower: Support hardware miss to tc action net/sched: flower: Move filter handle initialization earlier net/sched: cls_api: Support hardware miss to tc action net/sched: Rename user cookie and act cookie sfc: fix builds without CONFIG_RTC_LIB sfc: clean up some inconsistent indentings net/mlx4_en: Introduce flexible array to silence overflow warning net: lan966x: Fix possible deadlock inside PTP net/ulp: Remove redundant ->clone() test in inet_clone_ulp(). ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst357
1 files changed, 357 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst b/Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..efde1fef4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/x86/exception-tables.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,357 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+===============================
+Kernel level exception handling
+===============================
+
+Commentary by Joerg Pommnitz <joerg@raleigh.ibm.com>
+
+When a process runs in kernel mode, it often has to access user
+mode memory whose address has been passed by an untrusted program.
+To protect itself the kernel has to verify this address.
+
+In older versions of Linux this was done with the
+int verify_area(int type, const void * addr, unsigned long size)
+function (which has since been replaced by access_ok()).
+
+This function verified that the memory area starting at address
+'addr' and of size 'size' was accessible for the operation specified
+in type (read or write). To do this, verify_read had to look up the
+virtual memory area (vma) that contained the address addr. In the
+normal case (correctly working program), this test was successful.
+It only failed for a few buggy programs. In some kernel profiling
+tests, this normally unneeded verification used up a considerable
+amount of time.
+
+To overcome this situation, Linus decided to let the virtual memory
+hardware present in every Linux-capable CPU handle this test.
+
+How does this work?
+
+Whenever the kernel tries to access an address that is currently not
+accessible, the CPU generates a page fault exception and calls the
+page fault handler::
+
+ void exc_page_fault(struct pt_regs *regs, unsigned long error_code)
+
+in arch/x86/mm/fault.c. The parameters on the stack are set up by
+the low level assembly glue in arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S. The parameter
+regs is a pointer to the saved registers on the stack, error_code
+contains a reason code for the exception.
+
+exc_page_fault() first obtains the inaccessible address from the CPU
+control register CR2. If the address is within the virtual address
+space of the process, the fault probably occurred, because the page
+was not swapped in, write protected or something similar. However,
+we are interested in the other case: the address is not valid, there
+is no vma that contains this address. In this case, the kernel jumps
+to the bad_area label.
+
+There it uses the address of the instruction that caused the exception
+(i.e. regs->eip) to find an address where the execution can continue
+(fixup). If this search is successful, the fault handler modifies the
+return address (again regs->eip) and returns. The execution will
+continue at the address in fixup.
+
+Where does fixup point to?
+
+Since we jump to the contents of fixup, fixup obviously points
+to executable code. This code is hidden inside the user access macros.
+I have picked the get_user() macro defined in arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess.h
+as an example. The definition is somewhat hard to follow, so let's peek at
+the code generated by the preprocessor and the compiler. I selected
+the get_user() call in drivers/char/sysrq.c for a detailed examination.
+
+The original code in sysrq.c line 587::
+
+ get_user(c, buf);
+
+The preprocessor output (edited to become somewhat readable)::
+
+ (
+ {
+ long __gu_err = - 14 , __gu_val = 0;
+ const __typeof__(*( ( buf ) )) *__gu_addr = ((buf));
+ if (((((0 + current_set[0])->tss.segment) == 0x18 ) ||
+ (((sizeof(*(buf))) <= 0xC0000000UL) &&
+ ((unsigned long)(__gu_addr ) <= 0xC0000000UL - (sizeof(*(buf)))))))
+ do {
+ __gu_err = 0;
+ switch ((sizeof(*(buf)))) {
+ case 1:
+ __asm__ __volatile__(
+ "1: mov" "b" " %2,%" "b" "1\n"
+ "2:\n"
+ ".section .fixup,\"ax\"\n"
+ "3: movl %3,%0\n"
+ " xor" "b" " %" "b" "1,%" "b" "1\n"
+ " jmp 2b\n"
+ ".section __ex_table,\"a\"\n"
+ " .align 4\n"
+ " .long 1b,3b\n"
+ ".text" : "=r"(__gu_err), "=q" (__gu_val): "m"((*(struct __large_struct *)
+ ( __gu_addr )) ), "i"(- 14 ), "0"( __gu_err )) ;
+ break;
+ case 2:
+ __asm__ __volatile__(
+ "1: mov" "w" " %2,%" "w" "1\n"
+ "2:\n"
+ ".section .fixup,\"ax\"\n"
+ "3: movl %3,%0\n"
+ " xor" "w" " %" "w" "1,%" "w" "1\n"
+ " jmp 2b\n"
+ ".section __ex_table,\"a\"\n"
+ " .align 4\n"
+ " .long 1b,3b\n"
+ ".text" : "=r"(__gu_err), "=r" (__gu_val) : "m"((*(struct __large_struct *)
+ ( __gu_addr )) ), "i"(- 14 ), "0"( __gu_err ));
+ break;
+ case 4:
+ __asm__ __volatile__(
+ "1: mov" "l" " %2,%" "" "1\n"
+ "2:\n"
+ ".section .fixup,\"ax\"\n"
+ "3: movl %3,%0\n"
+ " xor" "l" " %" "" "1,%" "" "1\n"
+ " jmp 2b\n"
+ ".section __ex_table,\"a\"\n"
+ " .align 4\n" " .long 1b,3b\n"
+ ".text" : "=r"(__gu_err), "=r" (__gu_val) : "m"((*(struct __large_struct *)
+ ( __gu_addr )) ), "i"(- 14 ), "0"(__gu_err));
+ break;
+ default:
+ (__gu_val) = __get_user_bad();
+ }
+ } while (0) ;
+ ((c)) = (__typeof__(*((buf))))__gu_val;
+ __gu_err;
+ }
+ );
+
+WOW! Black GCC/assembly magic. This is impossible to follow, so let's
+see what code gcc generates::
+
+ > xorl %edx,%edx
+ > movl current_set,%eax
+ > cmpl $24,788(%eax)
+ > je .L1424
+ > cmpl $-1073741825,64(%esp)
+ > ja .L1423
+ > .L1424:
+ > movl %edx,%eax
+ > movl 64(%esp),%ebx
+ > #APP
+ > 1: movb (%ebx),%dl /* this is the actual user access */
+ > 2:
+ > .section .fixup,"ax"
+ > 3: movl $-14,%eax
+ > xorb %dl,%dl
+ > jmp 2b
+ > .section __ex_table,"a"
+ > .align 4
+ > .long 1b,3b
+ > .text
+ > #NO_APP
+ > .L1423:
+ > movzbl %dl,%esi
+
+The optimizer does a good job and gives us something we can actually
+understand. Can we? The actual user access is quite obvious. Thanks
+to the unified address space we can just access the address in user
+memory. But what does the .section stuff do?????
+
+To understand this we have to look at the final kernel::
+
+ > objdump --section-headers vmlinux
+ >
+ > vmlinux: file format elf32-i386
+ >
+ > Sections:
+ > Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn
+ > 0 .text 00098f40 c0100000 c0100000 00001000 2**4
+ > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE
+ > 1 .fixup 000016bc c0198f40 c0198f40 00099f40 2**0
+ > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE
+ > 2 .rodata 0000f127 c019a5fc c019a5fc 0009b5fc 2**2
+ > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA
+ > 3 __ex_table 000015c0 c01a9724 c01a9724 000aa724 2**2
+ > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA
+ > 4 .data 0000ea58 c01abcf0 c01abcf0 000abcf0 2**4
+ > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
+ > 5 .bss 00018e21 c01ba748 c01ba748 000ba748 2**2
+ > ALLOC
+ > 6 .comment 00000ec4 00000000 00000000 000ba748 2**0
+ > CONTENTS, READONLY
+ > 7 .note 00001068 00000ec4 00000ec4 000bb60c 2**0
+ > CONTENTS, READONLY
+
+There are obviously 2 non standard ELF sections in the generated object
+file. But first we want to find out what happened to our code in the
+final kernel executable::
+
+ > objdump --disassemble --section=.text vmlinux
+ >
+ > c017e785 <do_con_write+c1> xorl %edx,%edx
+ > c017e787 <do_con_write+c3> movl 0xc01c7bec,%eax
+ > c017e78c <do_con_write+c8> cmpl $0x18,0x314(%eax)
+ > c017e793 <do_con_write+cf> je c017e79f <do_con_write+db>
+ > c017e795 <do_con_write+d1> cmpl $0xbfffffff,0x40(%esp,1)
+ > c017e79d <do_con_write+d9> ja c017e7a7 <do_con_write+e3>
+ > c017e79f <do_con_write+db> movl %edx,%eax
+ > c017e7a1 <do_con_write+dd> movl 0x40(%esp,1),%ebx
+ > c017e7a5 <do_con_write+e1> movb (%ebx),%dl
+ > c017e7a7 <do_con_write+e3> movzbl %dl,%esi
+
+The whole user memory access is reduced to 10 x86 machine instructions.
+The instructions bracketed in the .section directives are no longer
+in the normal execution path. They are located in a different section
+of the executable file::
+
+ > objdump --disassemble --section=.fixup vmlinux
+ >
+ > c0199ff5 <.fixup+10b5> movl $0xfffffff2,%eax
+ > c0199ffa <.fixup+10ba> xorb %dl,%dl
+ > c0199ffc <.fixup+10bc> jmp c017e7a7 <do_con_write+e3>
+
+And finally::
+
+ > objdump --full-contents --section=__ex_table vmlinux
+ >
+ > c01aa7c4 93c017c0 e09f19c0 97c017c0 99c017c0 ................
+ > c01aa7d4 f6c217c0 e99f19c0 a5e717c0 f59f19c0 ................
+ > c01aa7e4 080a18c0 01a019c0 0a0a18c0 04a019c0 ................
+
+or in human readable byte order::
+
+ > c01aa7c4 c017c093 c0199fe0 c017c097 c017c099 ................
+ > c01aa7d4 c017c2f6 c0199fe9 c017e7a5 c0199ff5 ................
+ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+ this is the interesting part!
+ > c01aa7e4 c0180a08 c019a001 c0180a0a c019a004 ................
+
+What happened? The assembly directives::
+
+ .section .fixup,"ax"
+ .section __ex_table,"a"
+
+told the assembler to move the following code to the specified
+sections in the ELF object file. So the instructions::
+
+ 3: movl $-14,%eax
+ xorb %dl,%dl
+ jmp 2b
+
+ended up in the .fixup section of the object file and the addresses::
+
+ .long 1b,3b
+
+ended up in the __ex_table section of the object file. 1b and 3b
+are local labels. The local label 1b (1b stands for next label 1
+backward) is the address of the instruction that might fault, i.e.
+in our case the address of the label 1 is c017e7a5:
+the original assembly code: > 1: movb (%ebx),%dl
+and linked in vmlinux : > c017e7a5 <do_con_write+e1> movb (%ebx),%dl
+
+The local label 3 (backwards again) is the address of the code to handle
+the fault, in our case the actual value is c0199ff5:
+the original assembly code: > 3: movl $-14,%eax
+and linked in vmlinux : > c0199ff5 <.fixup+10b5> movl $0xfffffff2,%eax
+
+If the fixup was able to handle the exception, control flow may be returned
+to the instruction after the one that triggered the fault, ie. local label 2b.
+
+The assembly code::
+
+ > .section __ex_table,"a"
+ > .align 4
+ > .long 1b,3b
+
+becomes the value pair::
+
+ > c01aa7d4 c017c2f6 c0199fe9 c017e7a5 c0199ff5 ................
+ ^this is ^this is
+ 1b 3b
+
+c017e7a5,c0199ff5 in the exception table of the kernel.
+
+So, what actually happens if a fault from kernel mode with no suitable
+vma occurs?
+
+#. access to invalid address::
+
+ > c017e7a5 <do_con_write+e1> movb (%ebx),%dl
+#. MMU generates exception
+#. CPU calls exc_page_fault()
+#. exc_page_fault() calls do_user_addr_fault()
+#. do_user_addr_fault() calls kernelmode_fixup_or_oops()
+#. kernelmode_fixup_or_oops() calls fixup_exception() (regs->eip == c017e7a5);
+#. fixup_exception() calls search_exception_tables()
+#. search_exception_tables() looks up the address c017e7a5 in the
+ exception table (i.e. the contents of the ELF section __ex_table)
+ and returns the address of the associated fault handle code c0199ff5.
+#. fixup_exception() modifies its own return address to point to the fault
+ handle code and returns.
+#. execution continues in the fault handling code.
+#. a) EAX becomes -EFAULT (== -14)
+ b) DL becomes zero (the value we "read" from user space)
+ c) execution continues at local label 2 (address of the
+ instruction immediately after the faulting user access).
+
+The steps 8a to 8c in a certain way emulate the faulting instruction.
+
+That's it, mostly. If you look at our example, you might ask why
+we set EAX to -EFAULT in the exception handler code. Well, the
+get_user() macro actually returns a value: 0, if the user access was
+successful, -EFAULT on failure. Our original code did not test this
+return value, however the inline assembly code in get_user() tries to
+return -EFAULT. GCC selected EAX to return this value.
+
+NOTE:
+Due to the way that the exception table is built and needs to be ordered,
+only use exceptions for code in the .text section. Any other section
+will cause the exception table to not be sorted correctly, and the
+exceptions will fail.
+
+Things changed when 64-bit support was added to x86 Linux. Rather than
+double the size of the exception table by expanding the two entries
+from 32-bits to 64 bits, a clever trick was used to store addresses
+as relative offsets from the table itself. The assembly code changed
+from::
+
+ .long 1b,3b
+ to:
+ .long (from) - .
+ .long (to) - .
+
+and the C-code that uses these values converts back to absolute addresses
+like this::
+
+ ex_insn_addr(const struct exception_table_entry *x)
+ {
+ return (unsigned long)&x->insn + x->insn;
+ }
+
+In v4.6 the exception table entry was expanded with a new field "handler".
+This is also 32-bits wide and contains a third relative function
+pointer which points to one of:
+
+1) ``int ex_handler_default(const struct exception_table_entry *fixup)``
+ This is legacy case that just jumps to the fixup code
+
+2) ``int ex_handler_fault(const struct exception_table_entry *fixup)``
+ This case provides the fault number of the trap that occurred at
+ entry->insn. It is used to distinguish page faults from machine
+ check.
+
+More functions can easily be added.
+
+CONFIG_BUILDTIME_TABLE_SORT allows the __ex_table section to be sorted post
+link of the kernel image, via a host utility scripts/sorttable. It will set the
+symbol main_extable_sort_needed to 0, avoiding sorting the __ex_table section
+at boot time. With the exception table sorted, at runtime when an exception
+occurs we can quickly lookup the __ex_table entry via binary search.
+
+This is not just a boot time optimization, some architectures require this
+table to be sorted in order to handle exceptions relatively early in the boot
+process. For example, i386 makes use of this form of exception handling before
+paging support is even enabled!