Re: [PATCH v5 08/14] arm64: Import latest optimization of memcpy

[Sunil Kovvuri <sunil.kovvuri@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 5:36 PM Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com> wrote:
>
> On 2021-06-01 11:03, Sunil Kovvuri wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 8:44 PM Oliver Swede <oli.swede@arm.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> From: Sam Tebbs <sam.tebbs@arm.com>
> >>
> >> Import the latest memcpy implementation into memcpy,
> >> copy_{from, to and in}_user.
> >> The implementation of the user routines is separated into two forms:
> >> one for when UAO is enabled and one for when UAO is disabled, with
> >> the two being chosen between with a runtime patch.
> >> This avoids executing the many NOPs emitted when UAO is disabled.
> >>
> >> The project containing optimized implementations for various library
> >> functions has now been renamed from 'cortex-strings' to
> >> 'optimized-routines', and the new upstream source is
> >> string/aarch64/memcpy.S as of commit 4c175c8be12 in
> >> https://github.com/ARM-software/optimized-routines.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Sam Tebbs <sam.tebbs@arm.com>
> >> [ rm: add UAO fixups, streamline copy_exit paths, expand commit message ]
> >> Signed-off-by: Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>
> >> [ os: import newer memcpy algorithm, update commit message ]
> >> Signed-off-by: Oliver Swede <oli.swede@arm.com>
> >> ---
> >>   arch/arm64/include/asm/alternative.h |  36 ---
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_from_user.S      | 113 ++++++--
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_in_user.S        | 129 +++++++--
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_template.S       | 375 +++++++++++++++------------
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_template_user.S  |  24 ++
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_to_user.S        | 112 ++++++--
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/copy_user_fixup.S     |  14 +
> >>   arch/arm64/lib/memcpy.S              |  47 ++--
> >>   8 files changed, 557 insertions(+), 293 deletions(-)
> >>   create mode 100644 arch/arm64/lib/copy_template_user.S
> >>   create mode 100644 arch/arm64/lib/copy_user_fixup.S
> >
> > Do you have any performance data with this patch ?
> > I see these patches are still not pushed to mainline, any reasons ?
>
> Funny you should pick up on the 6-month-old thread days after I've been
> posting new versions of the relevant parts[1] :)

Hmm.. I searched with the subject and didn't find any newer version of patches.
It seems you changed patch subject which I didn't anticipate.

>
> I think this series mostly stalled on the complexity of the usercopy
> parts, which then turned into even more of a moving target anyway, hence
> why I decided to split it up.
>
> > Also curious to know why 128bit registers are not considered, similar to
> > https://android.googlesource.com/platform/bionic.git/+/a71b4c3f144a516826e8ac5b262099b920c49ce0/libc/arch-arm64/generic-neon/bionic/memcpy.S
>
> The overhead of kernel_neon_begin() etc. is significant, and usually
> only worth it in places like the crypto routines where there's enough
> benefit from actual ASIMD computation to outweigh the save/restore cost.
> On smaller cores where the L1 interface is only 128 bits wide anyway
> there is no possible gain in memcpy() throughput to ever offset that
> cost, and even for wider microarchitectures it's only likely to start
> breaking even at relatively large copy sizes. Plus we can't necessarily
> assume the ASIMD registers are even present (apparently the lack of a
> soft-float ABI hasn't stopped people from wanting to run Linux on such
> systems...)
>
> Robin.

Thanks for the info.

>
> [1]
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/cover.1622128527.git.robin.murphy@arm.com/