Re: [PATCH v2] x86/cpu: Use SERIALIZE in sync_core() when available

From: Ricardo Neri <ricardo.neri-calderon@linux.intel.com>
To: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>, X86 ML <x86@kernel.org>,
	"Peter Zijlstra (Intel)" <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>,
	Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>,
	Cathy Zhang <cathy.zhang@intel.com>,
	Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com>,
	Kyung Min Park <kyung.min.park@intel.com>,
	"Ravi V. Shankar" <ravi.v.shankar@intel.com>,
	Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Ricardo Neri <ricardo.neri@intel.com>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
	linux-edac <linux-edac@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] x86/cpu: Use SERIALIZE in sync_core() when available
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 12:11:26 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200805191126.GA27509@ranerica-svr.sc.intel.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CALCETrWByBugaunKPz52sdOGJpEdNNMK2kcp-wXgjFpFZuoOmQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 11:28:31AM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 10:07 AM Ricardo Neri
> <ricardo.neri-calderon@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 07:08:08AM +0200, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 04, 2020 at 09:58:25PM -0700, hpa@zytor.com wrote:
> > > > Because why use an alternative to jump over one instruction?
> > > >
> > > > I personally would prefer to have the IRET put out of line
> > >
> > > Can't yet - SERIALIZE CPUs are a minority at the moment.
> > >
> > > > and have the call/jmp replaced by SERIALIZE inline.
> > >
> > > Well, we could do:
> > >
> > >       alternative_io("... IRET bunch", __ASM_SERIALIZE, X86_FEATURE_SERIALIZE, ...);
> > >
> > > and avoid all kinds of jumping. Alternatives get padded so there
> > > would be a couple of NOPs following when SERIALIZE gets patched in
> > > but it shouldn't be a problem. I guess one needs to look at what gcc
> > > generates...
> >
> > But the IRET-TO-SELF code has instruction which modify the stack. This
> > would violate stack invariance in alternatives as enforced in commit
> > 7117f16bf460 ("objtool: Fix ORC vs alternatives"). As a result, objtool
> > gives warnings as follows:
> >
> > arch/x86/kernel/alternative.o: warning: objtool: do_sync_core()+0xe:
> > alternative modifies stack
> >
> > Perhaps in this specific case it does not matter as the changes in the
> > stack will be undone by IRET. However, using alternative_io would require
> > adding the macro STACK_FRAME_NON_STANDARD to functions using sync_core().
> > IMHO, it wouldn't look good.
> >
> > So maybe the best approach is to implement as you suggested using
> > static_cpu_has()?
> 
> I agree.  Let's keep it simple.
> 
> Honestly, I think the right solution is to have iret_to_self() in
> actual asm and invoke it from C as needed. 

Do you mean anything different from what we have already [1]? If I
understand your comment correctly, we have exactly that: an
iret_to_self() asm implementation invoked from C.

Thanks and BR,
Ricardo

[1]. https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200727043132.15082-4-ricardo.neri-calderon@linux.intel.com/

Thanks and BR,
Ricardo