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Daniel Borkmann 4f3446bb80 bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits
This work adds a generic facility for use from eBPF JIT compilers
that allows for further hardening of JIT generated images through
blinding constants. In response to the original work on BPF JIT
spraying published by Keegan McAllister [1], most BPF JITs were
changed to make images read-only and start at a randomized offset
in the page, where the rest was filled with trap instructions. We
have this nowadays in x86, arm, arm64 and s390 JIT compilers.
Additionally, later work also made eBPF interpreter images read
only for kernels supporting DEBUG_SET_MODULE_RONX, that is, x86,
arm, arm64 and s390 archs as well currently. This is done by
default for mentioned JITs when JITing is enabled. Furthermore,
we had a generic and configurable constant blinding facility on our
todo for quite some time now to further make spraying harder, and
first implementation since around netconf 2016.

We found that for systems where untrusted users can load cBPF/eBPF
code where JIT is enabled, start offset randomization helps a bit
to make jumps into crafted payload harder, but in case where larger
programs that cross page boundary are injected, we again have some
part of the program opcodes at a page start offset. With improved
guessing and more reliable payload injection, chances can increase
to jump into such payload. Elena Reshetova recently wrote a test
case for it [2, 3]. Moreover, eBPF comes with 64 bit constants, which
can leave some more room for payloads. Note that for all this,
additional bugs in the kernel are still required to make the jump
(and of course to guess right, to not jump into a trap) and naturally
the JIT must be enabled, which is disabled by default.

For helping mitigation, the general idea is to provide an option
bpf_jit_harden that admins can tweak along with bpf_jit_enable, so
that for cases where JIT should be enabled for performance reasons,
the generated image can be further hardened with blinding constants
for unpriviledged users (bpf_jit_harden == 1), with trading off
performance for these, but not for privileged ones. We also added
the option of blinding for all users (bpf_jit_harden == 2), which
is quite helpful for testing f.e. with test_bpf.ko. There are no
further e.g. hardening levels of bpf_jit_harden switch intended,
rationale is to have it dead simple to use as on/off. Since this
functionality would need to be duplicated over and over for JIT
compilers to use, which are already complex enough, we provide a
generic eBPF byte-code level based blinding implementation, which is
then just transparently JITed. JIT compilers need to make only a few
changes to integrate this facility and can be migrated one by one.

This option is for eBPF JITs and will be used in x86, arm64, s390
without too much effort, and soon ppc64 JITs, thus that native eBPF
can be blinded as well as cBPF to eBPF migrations, so that both can
be covered with a single implementation. The rule for JITs is that
bpf_jit_blind_constants() must be called from bpf_int_jit_compile(),
and in case blinding is disabled, we follow normally with JITing the
passed program. In case blinding is enabled and we fail during the
process of blinding itself, we must return with the interpreter.
Similarly, in case the JITing process after the blinding failed, we
return normally to the interpreter with the non-blinded code. Meaning,
interpreter doesn't change in any way and operates on eBPF code as
usual. For doing this pre-JIT blinding step, we need to make use of
a helper/auxiliary register, here BPF_REG_AX. This is strictly internal
to the JIT and not in any way part of the eBPF architecture. Just like
in the same way as JITs internally make use of some helper registers
when emitting code, only that here the helper register is one
abstraction level higher in eBPF bytecode, but nevertheless in JIT
phase. That helper register is needed since f.e. manually written
program can issue loads to all registers of eBPF architecture.

The core concept with the additional register is: blind out all 32
and 64 bit constants by converting BPF_K based instructions into a
small sequence from K_VAL into ((RND ^ K_VAL) ^ RND). Therefore, this
is transformed into: BPF_REG_AX := (RND ^ K_VAL), BPF_REG_AX ^= RND,
and REG <OP> BPF_REG_AX, so actual operation on the target register
is translated from BPF_K into BPF_X one that is operating on
BPF_REG_AX's content. During rewriting phase when blinding, RND is
newly generated via prandom_u32() for each processed instruction.
64 bit loads are split into two 32 bit loads to make translation and
patching not too complex. Only basic thing required by JITs is to
call the helper bpf_jit_blind_constants()/bpf_jit_prog_release_other()
pair, and to map BPF_REG_AX into an unused register.

Small bpf_jit_disasm extract from [2] when applied to x86 JIT:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_harden

  ffffffffa034f5e9 + <x>:
  [...]
  39:   mov    $0xa8909090,%eax
  3e:   mov    $0xa8909090,%eax
  43:   mov    $0xa8ff3148,%eax
  48:   mov    $0xa89081b4,%eax
  4d:   mov    $0xa8900bb0,%eax
  52:   mov    $0xa810e0c1,%eax
  57:   mov    $0xa8908eb4,%eax
  5c:   mov    $0xa89020b0,%eax
  [...]

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_harden

  ffffffffa034f1e5 + <x>:
  [...]
  39:   mov    $0xe1192563,%r10d
  3f:   xor    $0x4989b5f3,%r10d
  46:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  49:   mov    $0xb8296d93,%r10d
  4f:   xor    $0x10b9fd03,%r10d
  56:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  59:   mov    $0x8c381146,%r10d
  5f:   xor    $0x24c7200e,%r10d
  66:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  69:   mov    $0xeb2a830e,%r10d
  6f:   xor    $0x43ba02ba,%r10d
  76:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  79:   mov    $0xd9730af,%r10d
  7f:   xor    $0xa5073b1f,%r10d
  86:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  89:   mov    $0x9a45662b,%r10d
  8f:   xor    $0x325586ea,%r10d
  96:   mov    %r10d,%eax
  [...]

As can be seen, original constants that carry payload are hidden
when enabled, actual operations are transformed from constant-based
to register-based ones, making jumps into constants ineffective.
Above extract/example uses single BPF load instruction over and
over, but of course all instructions with constants are blinded.

Performance wise, JIT with blinding performs a bit slower than just
JIT and faster than interpreter case. This is expected, since we
still get all the performance benefits from JITing and in normal
use-cases not every single instruction needs to be blinded. Summing
up all 296 test cases averaged over multiple runs from test_bpf.ko
suite, interpreter was 55% slower than JIT only and JIT with blinding
was 8% slower than JIT only. Since there are also some extremes in
the test suite, I expect for ordinary workloads that the performance
for the JIT with blinding case is even closer to JIT only case,
f.e. nmap test case from suite has averaged timings in ns 29 (JIT),
35 (+ blinding), and 151 (interpreter).

BPF test suite, seccomp test suite, eBPF sample code and various
bigger networking eBPF programs have been tested with this and were
running fine. For testing purposes, I also adapted interpreter and
redirected blinded eBPF image to interpreter and also here all tests
pass.

  [1] http://mainisusuallyafunction.blogspot.com/2012/11/attacking-hardened-linux-systems-with.html
  [2] https://github.com/01org/jit-spray-poc-for-ksp/
  [3] http://www.openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2016/05/03/5

Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Reviewed-by: Elena Reshetova <elena.reshetova@intel.com>
Acked-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
arch bpf: prepare bpf_int_jit_compile/bpf_prog_select_runtime apis 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
block Merge branch 'ovl-fixes' into for-linus 2016-05-11 00:00:29 -04:00
certs certs: Fix misaligned data in extra certificate list 2016-02-29 14:44:30 +00:00
crypto crypto: testmgr - Use kmalloc memory for RSA input 2016-05-09 16:47:53 +08:00
Documentation bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
drivers net: dsa: mv88e6xxx: remove bridge work 2016-05-16 13:46:24 -04:00
firmware WHENCE: use https://linuxtv.org for LinuxTV URLs 2015-12-04 10:35:11 -02:00
fs Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2016-05-15 13:32:48 -04:00
include bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
init Make CONFIG_FHANDLE default y 2016-04-01 17:03:37 -05:00
ipc mm, fs: get rid of PAGE_CACHE_* and page_cache_{get,release} macros 2016-04-04 10:41:08 -07:00
kernel bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
lib bpf: prepare bpf_int_jit_compile/bpf_prog_select_runtime apis 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
mm mm: thp: calculate the mapcount correctly for THP pages during WP faults 2016-05-12 15:52:50 -07:00
net bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
samples samples/bpf: add verifier tests 2016-05-06 16:01:54 -04:00
scripts modpost: fix module autoloading for OF devices with generic compatible property 2016-05-05 17:38:53 -07:00
security Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2016-05-09 15:59:24 -04:00
sound ALSA: usb-audio: Yet another Phoneix Audio device quirk 2016-05-11 18:12:49 +02:00
tools perf stat: Fallback to user only counters when perf_event_paranoid > 1 2016-05-12 16:25:18 -03:00
usr usr/Kconfig: make initrd compression algorithm selection not expert 2014-12-13 12:42:52 -08:00
virt KVM: arm/arm64: Handle forward time correction gracefully 2016-04-06 13:17:54 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore Add hch to .get_maintainer.ignore 2015-08-21 14:30:10 -07:00
.gitignore Merge branch 'misc' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild 2015-09-08 14:23:13 -07:00
.mailmap mailmap: add John Paul Adrian Glaubitz 2016-05-05 20:07:14 -07:00
COPYING [PATCH] update FSF address in COPYING 2005-09-10 10:06:29 -07:00
CREDITS First round of new IIO device support, features and cleanups for the 4.6 cycle. 2016-02-01 13:10:03 -08:00
Kbuild time: Remove development rules from Kbuild/Makefile 2015-07-01 09:57:35 +02:00
Kconfig kbuild: migrate all arch to the kconfig mainmenu upgrade 2010-09-19 22:54:11 -04:00
MAINTAINERS Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2016-05-15 13:32:48 -04:00
Makefile Linux 4.6-rc7 2016-05-08 14:38:32 -07:00
README README: cosmetic fixes 2016-01-25 12:39:18 -07:00
REPORTING-BUGS Docs: fix missing word in REPORTING-BUGS 2016-02-15 11:18:23 +01:00

        Linux kernel release 4.x <http://kernel.org/>

These are the release notes for Linux version 4.  Read them carefully,
as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong. 

WHAT IS LINUX?

  Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by
  Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across
  the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

  It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix,
  including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
  loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management,
  and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.

  It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
  accompanying COPYING file for more details. 

ON WHAT HARDWARE DOES IT RUN?

  Although originally developed first for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher),
  today Linux also runs on (at least) the Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and
  UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, Cell,
  IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64, AXIS CRIS,
  Xtensa, Tilera TILE, AVR32, ARC and Renesas M32R architectures.

  Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures
  as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the
  GNU C compiler (gcc) (part of The GNU Compiler Collection, GCC). Linux has
  also been ported to a number of architectures without a PMMU, although
  functionality is then obviously somewhat limited.
  Linux has also been ported to itself. You can now run the kernel as a
  userspace application - this is called UserMode Linux (UML).

DOCUMENTATION:

 - There is a lot of documentation available both in electronic form on
   the Internet and in books, both Linux-specific and pertaining to
   general UNIX questions.  I'd recommend looking into the documentation
   subdirectories on any Linux FTP site for the LDP (Linux Documentation
   Project) books.  This README is not meant to be documentation on the
   system: there are much better sources available.

 - There are various README files in the Documentation/ subdirectory:
   these typically contain kernel-specific installation notes for some 
   drivers for example. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what
   is contained in each file.  Please read the Changes file, as it
   contains information about the problems, which may result by upgrading
   your kernel.

 - The Documentation/DocBook/ subdirectory contains several guides for
   kernel developers and users.  These guides can be rendered in a
   number of formats:  PostScript (.ps), PDF, HTML, & man-pages, among others.
   After installation, "make psdocs", "make pdfdocs", "make htmldocs",
   or "make mandocs" will render the documentation in the requested format.

INSTALLING the kernel source:

 - If you install the full sources, put the kernel tarball in a
   directory where you have permissions (e.g. your home directory) and
   unpack it:

     xz -cd linux-4.X.tar.xz | tar xvf -

   Replace "X" with the version number of the latest kernel.

   Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! This area has a (usually
   incomplete) set of kernel headers that are used by the library header
   files.  They should match the library, and not get messed up by
   whatever the kernel-du-jour happens to be.

 - You can also upgrade between 4.x releases by patching.  Patches are
   distributed in the xz format.  To install by patching, get all the
   newer patch files, enter the top level directory of the kernel source
   (linux-4.X) and execute:

     xz -cd ../patch-4.x.xz | patch -p1

   Replace "x" for all versions bigger than the version "X" of your current
   source tree, _in_order_, and you should be ok.  You may want to remove
   the backup files (some-file-name~ or some-file-name.orig), and make sure
   that there are no failed patches (some-file-name# or some-file-name.rej).
   If there are, either you or I have made a mistake.

   Unlike patches for the 4.x kernels, patches for the 4.x.y kernels
   (also known as the -stable kernels) are not incremental but instead apply
   directly to the base 4.x kernel.  For example, if your base kernel is 4.0
   and you want to apply the 4.0.3 patch, you must not first apply the 4.0.1
   and 4.0.2 patches. Similarly, if you are running kernel version 4.0.2 and
   want to jump to 4.0.3, you must first reverse the 4.0.2 patch (that is,
   patch -R) _before_ applying the 4.0.3 patch. You can read more on this in
   Documentation/applying-patches.txt

   Alternatively, the script patch-kernel can be used to automate this
   process.  It determines the current kernel version and applies any
   patches found.

     linux/scripts/patch-kernel linux

   The first argument in the command above is the location of the
   kernel source.  Patches are applied from the current directory, but
   an alternative directory can be specified as the second argument.

 - Make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:

     cd linux
     make mrproper

   You should now have the sources correctly installed.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

   Compiling and running the 4.x kernels requires up-to-date
   versions of various software packages.  Consult
   Documentation/Changes for the minimum version numbers required
   and how to get updates for these packages.  Beware that using
   excessively old versions of these packages can cause indirect
   errors that are very difficult to track down, so don't assume that
   you can just update packages when obvious problems arise during
   build or operation.

BUILD directory for the kernel:

   When compiling the kernel, all output files will per default be
   stored together with the kernel source code.
   Using the option "make O=output/dir" allows you to specify an alternate
   place for the output files (including .config).
   Example:

     kernel source code: /usr/src/linux-4.X
     build directory:    /home/name/build/kernel

   To configure and build the kernel, use:

     cd /usr/src/linux-4.X
     make O=/home/name/build/kernel menuconfig
     make O=/home/name/build/kernel
     sudo make O=/home/name/build/kernel modules_install install

   Please note: If the 'O=output/dir' option is used, then it must be
   used for all invocations of make.

CONFIGURING the kernel:

   Do not skip this step even if you are only upgrading one minor
   version.  New configuration options are added in each release, and
   odd problems will turn up if the configuration files are not set up
   as expected.  If you want to carry your existing configuration to a
   new version with minimal work, use "make oldconfig", which will
   only ask you for the answers to new questions.

 - Alternative configuration commands are:

     "make config"      Plain text interface.

     "make menuconfig"  Text based color menus, radiolists & dialogs.

     "make nconfig"     Enhanced text based color menus.

     "make xconfig"     Qt based configuration tool.

     "make gconfig"     GTK+ based configuration tool.

     "make oldconfig"   Default all questions based on the contents of
                        your existing ./.config file and asking about
                        new config symbols.

     "make silentoldconfig"
                        Like above, but avoids cluttering the screen
                        with questions already answered.
                        Additionally updates the dependencies.

     "make olddefconfig"
                        Like above, but sets new symbols to their default
                        values without prompting.

     "make defconfig"   Create a ./.config file by using the default
                        symbol values from either arch/$ARCH/defconfig
                        or arch/$ARCH/configs/${PLATFORM}_defconfig,
                        depending on the architecture.

     "make ${PLATFORM}_defconfig"
                        Create a ./.config file by using the default
                        symbol values from
                        arch/$ARCH/configs/${PLATFORM}_defconfig.
                        Use "make help" to get a list of all available
                        platforms of your architecture.

     "make allyesconfig"
                        Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
                        values to 'y' as much as possible.

     "make allmodconfig"
                        Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
                        values to 'm' as much as possible.

     "make allnoconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
                        values to 'n' as much as possible.

     "make randconfig"  Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
                        values to random values.

     "make localmodconfig" Create a config based on current config and
                           loaded modules (lsmod). Disables any module
                           option that is not needed for the loaded modules.

                           To create a localmodconfig for another machine,
                           store the lsmod of that machine into a file
                           and pass it in as a LSMOD parameter.

                   target$ lsmod > /tmp/mylsmod
                   target$ scp /tmp/mylsmod host:/tmp

                   host$ make LSMOD=/tmp/mylsmod localmodconfig

                           The above also works when cross compiling.

     "make localyesconfig" Similar to localmodconfig, except it will convert
                           all module options to built in (=y) options.

   You can find more information on using the Linux kernel config tools
   in Documentation/kbuild/kconfig.txt.

 - NOTES on "make config":

    - Having unnecessary drivers will make the kernel bigger, and can
      under some circumstances lead to problems: probing for a
      nonexistent controller card may confuse your other controllers

    - Compiling the kernel with "Processor type" set higher than 386
      will result in a kernel that does NOT work on a 386.  The
      kernel will detect this on bootup, and give up.

    - A kernel with math-emulation compiled in will still use the
      coprocessor if one is present: the math emulation will just
      never get used in that case.  The kernel will be slightly larger,
      but will work on different machines regardless of whether they
      have a math coprocessor or not.

    - The "kernel hacking" configuration details usually result in a
      bigger or slower kernel (or both), and can even make the kernel
      less stable by configuring some routines to actively try to
      break bad code to find kernel problems (kmalloc()).  Thus you
      should probably answer 'n' to the questions for "development",
      "experimental", or "debugging" features.

COMPILING the kernel:

 - Make sure you have at least gcc 3.2 available.
   For more information, refer to Documentation/Changes.

   Please note that you can still run a.out user programs with this kernel.

 - Do a "make" to create a compressed kernel image. It is also
   possible to do "make install" if you have lilo installed to suit the
   kernel makefiles, but you may want to check your particular lilo setup first.

   To do the actual install, you have to be root, but none of the normal
   build should require that. Don't take the name of root in vain.

 - If you configured any of the parts of the kernel as `modules', you
   will also have to do "make modules_install".

 - Verbose kernel compile/build output:

   Normally, the kernel build system runs in a fairly quiet mode (but not
   totally silent).  However, sometimes you or other kernel developers need
   to see compile, link, or other commands exactly as they are executed.
   For this, use "verbose" build mode.  This is done by passing
   "V=1" to the "make" command, e.g.

     make V=1 all

   To have the build system also tell the reason for the rebuild of each
   target, use "V=2".  The default is "V=0".

 - Keep a backup kernel handy in case something goes wrong.  This is 
   especially true for the development releases, since each new release
   contains new code which has not been debugged.  Make sure you keep a
   backup of the modules corresponding to that kernel, as well.  If you
   are installing a new kernel with the same version number as your
   working kernel, make a backup of your modules directory before you
   do a "make modules_install".

   Alternatively, before compiling, use the kernel config option
   "LOCALVERSION" to append a unique suffix to the regular kernel version.
   LOCALVERSION can be set in the "General Setup" menu.

 - In order to boot your new kernel, you'll need to copy the kernel
   image (e.g. .../linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage after compilation)
   to the place where your regular bootable kernel is found. 

 - Booting a kernel directly from a floppy without the assistance of a
   bootloader such as LILO, is no longer supported.

   If you boot Linux from the hard drive, chances are you use LILO, which
   uses the kernel image as specified in the file /etc/lilo.conf.  The
   kernel image file is usually /vmlinuz, /boot/vmlinuz, /bzImage or
   /boot/bzImage.  To use the new kernel, save a copy of the old image
   and copy the new image over the old one.  Then, you MUST RERUN LILO
   to update the loading map! If you don't, you won't be able to boot
   the new kernel image.

   Reinstalling LILO is usually a matter of running /sbin/lilo. 
   You may wish to edit /etc/lilo.conf to specify an entry for your
   old kernel image (say, /vmlinux.old) in case the new one does not
   work.  See the LILO docs for more information. 

   After reinstalling LILO, you should be all set.  Shutdown the system,
   reboot, and enjoy!

   If you ever need to change the default root device, video mode,
   ramdisk size, etc.  in the kernel image, use the 'rdev' program (or
   alternatively the LILO boot options when appropriate).  No need to
   recompile the kernel to change these parameters. 

 - Reboot with the new kernel and enjoy. 

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG:

 - If you have problems that seem to be due to kernel bugs, please check
   the file MAINTAINERS to see if there is a particular person associated
   with the part of the kernel that you are having trouble with. If there
   isn't anyone listed there, then the second best thing is to mail
   them to me (torvalds@linux-foundation.org), and possibly to any other
   relevant mailing-list or to the newsgroup.

 - In all bug-reports, *please* tell what kernel you are talking about,
   how to duplicate the problem, and what your setup is (use your common
   sense).  If the problem is new, tell me so, and if the problem is
   old, please try to tell me when you first noticed it.

 - If the bug results in a message like

     unable to handle kernel paging request at address C0000010
     Oops: 0002
     EIP:   0010:XXXXXXXX
     eax: xxxxxxxx   ebx: xxxxxxxx   ecx: xxxxxxxx   edx: xxxxxxxx
     esi: xxxxxxxx   edi: xxxxxxxx   ebp: xxxxxxxx
     ds: xxxx  es: xxxx  fs: xxxx  gs: xxxx
     Pid: xx, process nr: xx
     xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

   or similar kernel debugging information on your screen or in your
   system log, please duplicate it *exactly*.  The dump may look
   incomprehensible to you, but it does contain information that may
   help debugging the problem.  The text above the dump is also
   important: it tells something about why the kernel dumped code (in
   the above example, it's due to a bad kernel pointer). More information
   on making sense of the dump is in Documentation/oops-tracing.txt

 - If you compiled the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS you can send the dump
   as is, otherwise you will have to use the "ksymoops" program to make
   sense of the dump (but compiling with CONFIG_KALLSYMS is usually preferred).
   This utility can be downloaded from
   ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/ .
   Alternatively, you can do the dump lookup by hand:

 - In debugging dumps like the above, it helps enormously if you can
   look up what the EIP value means.  The hex value as such doesn't help
   me or anybody else very much: it will depend on your particular
   kernel setup.  What you should do is take the hex value from the EIP
   line (ignore the "0010:"), and look it up in the kernel namelist to
   see which kernel function contains the offending address.

   To find out the kernel function name, you'll need to find the system
   binary associated with the kernel that exhibited the symptom.  This is
   the file 'linux/vmlinux'.  To extract the namelist and match it against
   the EIP from the kernel crash, do:

     nm vmlinux | sort | less

   This will give you a list of kernel addresses sorted in ascending
   order, from which it is simple to find the function that contains the
   offending address.  Note that the address given by the kernel
   debugging messages will not necessarily match exactly with the
   function addresses (in fact, that is very unlikely), so you can't
   just 'grep' the list: the list will, however, give you the starting
   point of each kernel function, so by looking for the function that
   has a starting address lower than the one you are searching for but
   is followed by a function with a higher address you will find the one
   you want.  In fact, it may be a good idea to include a bit of
   "context" in your problem report, giving a few lines around the
   interesting one. 

   If you for some reason cannot do the above (you have a pre-compiled
   kernel image or similar), telling me as much about your setup as
   possible will help.  Please read the REPORTING-BUGS document for details.

 - Alternatively, you can use gdb on a running kernel. (read-only; i.e. you
   cannot change values or set break points.) To do this, first compile the
   kernel with -g; edit arch/i386/Makefile appropriately, then do a "make
   clean". You'll also need to enable CONFIG_PROC_FS (via "make config").

   After you've rebooted with the new kernel, do "gdb vmlinux /proc/kcore".
   You can now use all the usual gdb commands. The command to look up the
   point where your system crashed is "l *0xXXXXXXXX". (Replace the XXXes
   with the EIP value.)

   gdb'ing a non-running kernel currently fails because gdb (wrongly)
   disregards the starting offset for which the kernel is compiled.