Patch "x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments" has been added to the 4.4-stable tree

Patch "x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments" has been added to the 4.4-stable tree

[gregkh]

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

    x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments

to the 4.4-stable tree which can be found at:
    http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary

The filename of the patch is:
     x86-mm-improve-switch_mm-barrier-comments.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.4 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree,
please let <stable@vger.kernel.org> know about it.


>From 4eaffdd5a5fe6ff9f95e1ab4de1ac904d5e0fa8b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 12:47:40 -0800
Subject: x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments

From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>

commit 4eaffdd5a5fe6ff9f95e1ab4de1ac904d5e0fa8b upstream.

My previous comments were still a bit confusing and there was a
typo. Fix it up.

Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Fixes: 71b3c126e611 ("x86/mm: Add barriers and document switch_mm()-vs-flush synchronization")
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/0a0b43cdcdd241c5faaaecfbcc91a155ddedc9a1.1452631609.git.luto@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

---
 arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h |   15 ++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
@@ -132,14 +132,16 @@ static inline void switch_mm(struct mm_s
 		 * be sent, and CPU 0's TLB will contain a stale entry.)
 		 *
 		 * The bad outcome can occur if either CPU's load is
-		 * reordered before that CPU's store, so both CPUs much
+		 * reordered before that CPU's store, so both CPUs must
 		 * execute full barriers to prevent this from happening.
 		 *
 		 * Thus, switch_mm needs a full barrier between the
 		 * store to mm_cpumask and any operation that could load
-		 * from next->pgd.  This barrier synchronizes with
-		 * remote TLB flushers.  Fortunately, load_cr3 is
-		 * serializing and thus acts as a full barrier.
+		 * from next->pgd.  TLB fills are special and can happen
+		 * due to instruction fetches or for no reason at all,
+		 * and neither LOCK nor MFENCE orders them.
+		 * Fortunately, load_cr3() is serializing and gives the
+		 * ordering guarantee we need.
 		 *
 		 */
 		load_cr3(next->pgd);
@@ -188,9 +190,8 @@ static inline void switch_mm(struct mm_s
 			 * tlb flush IPI delivery. We must reload CR3
 			 * to make sure to use no freed page tables.
 			 *
-			 * As above, this is a barrier that forces
-			 * TLB repopulation to be ordered after the
-			 * store to mm_cpumask.
+			 * As above, load_cr3() is serializing and orders TLB
+			 * fills with respect to the mm_cpumask write.
 			 */
 			load_cr3(next->pgd);
 			trace_tlb_flush(TLB_FLUSH_ON_TASK_SWITCH, TLB_FLUSH_ALL);


Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from luto@kernel.org are

queue-4.4/x86-mm-add-barriers-and-document-switch_mm-vs-flush-synchronization.patch
queue-4.4/x86-mm-improve-switch_mm-barrier-comments.patch