Uprobes and uretprobes do not work with the 2-byte NOP that is prefixed with 0x66

Issue

• Uprobes and uretprobes do not work with the 2-byte NOP that is prefixed with 0x66

• The icc "-hotpatch" option inserts a 2-byte NOP instruction encoded as "0x66 0x90" at the beginning of every function.

Example:

   0x00000000127f0f00 <+0>:     66 90                  xchg   %ax,%ax        <<<   2-byte NOP "0x66 0x90" added by icc hotpatch option
   0x00000000127f0f02 <+2>:     55                     push   %rbp                   <<<   begin regular function prologue
   0x00000000127f0f03 <+3>:     48 89 e5               mov    %rsp,%rbp
   0x00000000127f0f06 <+6>:     48 81 ec e0 01 00 00   sub    $0x1e0,%rsp
   0x00000000127f0f0d <+13>:    48 89 5d e0            mov    %rbx,-0x20(%rbp)
   ...

• The problem with this kind of NOP instruction is that it is not supported by the uprobes code in the Linux kernel. Specifically, the kernel function branch_setup_xol_ops in arch/x86/kernel/uprobes.c contains a check that returns ENOTSUPP if an instruction is prefixed with "0x66":

/x86/kernel/uprobes.c:

        /*
         * 16-bit overrides such as CALLW (66 e8 nn nn) are not supported.
         * Intel and AMD behavior differ in 64-bit mode: Intel ignores 66 prefix.
         * No one uses these insns, reject any branch insns with such prefix.
         */
        for_each_insn_prefix(insn, i, p) {
               if (p == 0x66)
                       return -ENOTSUPP;
        }

• Due to this behavior, neither uprobes nor uretprobes can be used with applications that have been compiled with icc hotpatch support