[Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Frédéric Fort]

Hello,

I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's functionalities with plugins.
If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
 - a.ml : "main module" of the program
 - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
 - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
 - d.ml : plugin I would like to load

Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins would each reevaluate C
and undo each others modifications.

Yours sincerely,
Frédéric Fort

P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
I compiled it with
ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs

a.ml:
open Format

let _ =
  B.str := "abc";
  printf "%s\n" !B.str;
  begin
    try
      Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
    with Dynlink.Error err ->
      failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
  printf "%s\n" !B.str;
  match !C.f with
  | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
  | None -> ()

b.ml:
let str = ref ""

c.ml:
let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None

d.ml:
let _ =
  C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))

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Re: [Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Nicolás Ojeda Bär]

Dear Frédéric,

The reason for this behaviour is that `ocamlbuild` is linking b.cmx
(and c.cmx for that matter) into your plugin, when in fact you want it
to use the copy of B (and C) linked to your main program.
You can see the right behaviour if you build your plugin by hand, e.g. by doing

  ocamlopt -shared d.cmx d.cmxs

and run a.native.

If I remember correctly you need to use a .mldylib or .mllib file to
tell `ocamlbuild` explicitly which modules to link into your plugin
(in your case, just B). Someone more knowledgeable about `ocamlbuild`
may want to chime in.

Hope it helps!

Best wishes,
Nicolás



On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM Frédéric Fort
<frederic.fort@univ-lille.fr> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's functionalities with plugins.
> If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
>  - a.ml : "main module" of the program
>  - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
>  - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
>  - d.ml : plugin I would like to load
>
> Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
> and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
> Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.
>
> Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
> Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins would each reevaluate C
> and undo each others modifications.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Frédéric Fort
>
> P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
> I compiled it with
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs
>
> a.ml:
> open Format
>
> let _ =
>   B.str := "abc";
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   begin
>     try
>       Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
>     with Dynlink.Error err ->
>       failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   match !C.f with
>   | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
>   | None -> ()
>
> b.ml:
> let str = ref ""
>
> c.ml:
> let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None
>
> d.ml:
> let _ =
>   C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list https://inbox.ocaml.org/caml-list
> Forum: https://discuss.ocaml.org/
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

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Re: [Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Gabriel Scherer]

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Ocamlbuild knows of two ways to build .cmxs files:
- from a .cmxa file, repackaged for dynamic loading
- from a .mldylib, listing the modules to be included (like .mllib for
.cm{x,}a)

(See "ocamlbuild -documentation | grep cmxs" to check this)

Your build uses the first approach, and this results in d *and its
dependencies* being packaged in d.cmxa and then d.cmxs. (See the log, or
use -classic-display to see the commands). The behavior you expect requires
the second approach. You can obtain it by adding

d.mldylib:
  D

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 11:06 AM Frédéric Fort <frederic.fort@univ-lille.fr>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's
> functionalities with plugins.
> If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
>  - a.ml : "main module" of the program
>  - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
>  - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
>  - d.ml : plugin I would like to load
>
> Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
> and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
> Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.
>
> Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
> Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins
> would each reevaluate C
> and undo each others modifications.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Frédéric Fort
>
> P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
> I compiled it with
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs
>
> a.ml:
> open Format
>
> let _ =
>   B.str := "abc";
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   begin
>     try
>       Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
>     with Dynlink.Error err ->
>       failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   match !C.f with
>   | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
>   | None -> ()
>
> b.ml:
> let str = ref ""
>
> c.ml:
> let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None
>
> d.ml:
> let _ =
>   C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> https://inbox.ocaml.org/caml-list
> Forum: https://discuss.ocaml.org/
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

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Re: [Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Ivan Gotovchits]

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Hi Frederic,

You're observing a glimpse of an undefined behavior that occurs when OCaml
runtime reloads a compilation unit that is already loaded. It is a
well-known bug (MPR#4208, MPR#4229, MPR#4839, MPR#6462, MPR#6957, MPR#6950)
which is not yet fixed [1]. In a luckier general case, it will lead to a
segmentation fault. But sometimes, it may just flip some bits, turn true
into false, and ... happy debugging. The crux of the problem is that the
runtime not only reevaluates OCaml values, but it also resets the roots
table and other runtime data structures which breaks GC invariants and
sends it on a rampage on your data.

That is not to say that you can't load code dynamically in OCaml. You can,
and we do this successfully in BAP, which uses plugins very extensively. It
just means that you can't trust the runtime and hope that it will take care
of the correctness and need to ensure it yourself. Basically, that means
that your loader must track which compilation units are already loaded, and
your plugin must contain meta information that tells the loader which
compilation units it requires and which it provides. This requires quite a
cooperation from all the parts. In BAP we solved it in the following case:

1) Developed a `bapbuild` tool which is an ocamlbuild enhanced with a
plugin [2] that knows how to build `*.plugin` files. A plugin is a zip file
underneath the hood with a fixed layout (called bundle in our parlance). It
contains a MANIFEST file which includes the list of required libraries and
a list of provided units, along with some meta information and, of course,
the cmxs (and cma) for the code itself. Optionally, the bundle may include
all the dependent libraries (to make the plugin loadable in environments
where the required libraries are not provided). The `bapbuild` tool will
package all the dependencies by default, and since some libraries in the
OPAM universe do not provide `cmxs` at all it will also build cmxs for them
and package them into the plugin. Note,

2) Developed a `bap_plugins` runtime library [3] which loads plugins,
fulfilling their dependencies and ensuring that no units are loaded twice.

3) The host program (which loads plugins) may (and will) also contain some
compilation units in it, as it will be linked from some set of compilation
units that are either local to the project or came from external libraries.
So we need some cooperation from the build system that shall tell us which
units are already loaded (alternatively we can parse the ELF structures of
the host binary, but this doesn't sound as a very portable and robust
solution). We use `ocamlfind.dynlink` library which enables such
cooperation, by storing a list of libraries and packages that were used to
build a binary in an internal data structure. We wrote a small ocamlbuild
plugin [4] that enables this and the rest is done by ocamlfind (which
actually generates a file and links it into the host binary).

Everything is under MIT license so feel free to use it at your wish.
Besides having the bap prefix those tools are pretty independent and could
be generalized with all bapspecificness scrapped away.

Best wishes,
Ivan Gotovchits


[1]: https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/1063
[2]:
https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/lib/bap_build/bap_build.ml
[3]
https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/lib/bap_plugins/bap_plugins.ml
[4]
https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/myocamlbuild.ml.in#L41-L85

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 5:05 AM Frédéric Fort <frederic.fort@univ-lille.fr>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's
> functionalities with plugins.
> If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
>  - a.ml : "main module" of the program
>  - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
>  - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
>  - d.ml : plugin I would like to load
>
> Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
> and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
> Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.
>
> Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
> Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins
> would each reevaluate C
> and undo each others modifications.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Frédéric Fort
>
> P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
> I compiled it with
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs
>
> a.ml:
> open Format
>
> let _ =
>   B.str := "abc";
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   begin
>     try
>       Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
>     with Dynlink.Error err ->
>       failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>   match !C.f with
>   | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
>   | None -> ()
>
> b.ml:
> let str = ref ""
>
> c.ml:
> let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None
>
> d.ml:
> let _ =
>   C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> https://inbox.ocaml.org/caml-list
> Forum: https://discuss.ocaml.org/
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

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Re: [Caml-list] Dynlink plugin reevaluates modules of main program

[Nicolás Ojeda Bär]

Dear list,

As a follow-up to Ivan's informative email, I am happy to report that
the PR [1] mentioned in his email has been merged, so the fix to this
long-standing bug will be included in 4.08 when it is released.

Best wishes,
Nicolás
On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 2:04 PM Ivan Gotovchits <ivg@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Frederic,
>
> You're observing a glimpse of an undefined behavior that occurs when OCaml runtime reloads a compilation unit that is already loaded. It is a well-known bug (MPR#4208, MPR#4229, MPR#4839, MPR#6462, MPR#6957, MPR#6950) which is not yet fixed [1]. In a luckier general case, it will lead to a segmentation fault. But sometimes, it may just flip some bits, turn true into false, and ... happy debugging. The crux of the problem is that the runtime not only reevaluates OCaml values, but it also resets the roots table and other runtime data structures which breaks GC invariants and sends it on a rampage on your data.
>
> That is not to say that you can't load code dynamically in OCaml. You can, and we do this successfully in BAP, which uses plugins very extensively. It just means that you can't trust the runtime and hope that it will take care of the correctness and need to ensure it yourself. Basically, that means that your loader must track which compilation units are already loaded, and your plugin must contain meta information that tells the loader which compilation units it requires and which it provides. This requires quite a cooperation from all the parts. In BAP we solved it in the following case:
>
> 1) Developed a `bapbuild` tool which is an ocamlbuild enhanced with a plugin [2] that knows how to build `*.plugin` files. A plugin is a zip file underneath the hood with a fixed layout (called bundle in our parlance). It contains a MANIFEST file which includes the list of required libraries and a list of provided units, along with some meta information and, of course, the cmxs (and cma) for the code itself. Optionally, the bundle may include all the dependent libraries (to make the plugin loadable in environments where the required libraries are not provided). The `bapbuild` tool will package all the dependencies by default, and since some libraries in the OPAM universe do not provide `cmxs` at all it will also build cmxs for them and package them into the plugin. Note,
>
> 2) Developed a `bap_plugins` runtime library [3] which loads plugins, fulfilling their dependencies and ensuring that no units are loaded twice.
>
> 3) The host program (which loads plugins) may (and will) also contain some compilation units in it, as it will be linked from some set of compilation units that are either local to the project or came from external libraries. So we need some cooperation from the build system that shall tell us which units are already loaded (alternatively we can parse the ELF structures of the host binary, but this doesn't sound as a very portable and robust solution). We use `ocamlfind.dynlink` library which enables such cooperation, by storing a list of libraries and packages that were used to build a binary in an internal data structure. We wrote a small ocamlbuild plugin [4] that enables this and the rest is done by ocamlfind (which actually generates a file and links it into the host binary).
>
> Everything is under MIT license so feel free to use it at your wish. Besides having the bap prefix those tools are pretty independent and could be generalized with all bapspecificness scrapped away.
>
> Best wishes,
> Ivan Gotovchits
>
>
> [1]: https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/1063
> [2]: https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/lib/bap_build/bap_build.ml
> [3] https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/lib/bap_plugins/bap_plugins.ml
> [4] https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/bap/blob/master/myocamlbuild.ml.in#L41-L85
>
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 5:05 AM Frédéric Fort <frederic.fort@univ-lille.fr> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's functionalities with plugins.
>> If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
>>  - a.ml : "main module" of the program
>>  - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
>>  - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
>>  - d.ml : plugin I would like to load
>>
>> Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
>> and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
>> Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.
>>
>> Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
>> Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins would each reevaluate C
>> and undo each others modifications.
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>> Frédéric Fort
>>
>> P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
>> I compiled it with
>> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
>> ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs
>>
>> a.ml:
>> open Format
>>
>> let _ =
>>   B.str := "abc";
>>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>>   begin
>>     try
>>       Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
>>     with Dynlink.Error err ->
>>       failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
>>   printf "%s\n" !B.str;
>>   match !C.f with
>>   | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
>>   | None -> ()
>>
>> b.ml:
>> let str = ref ""
>>
>> c.ml:
>> let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None
>>
>> d.ml:
>> let _ =
>>   C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))
>>
>> --
>> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
>> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list https://inbox.ocaml.org/caml-list
>> Forum: https://discuss.ocaml.org/
>> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

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