Re: [PATCH] powerpc/vdso: Don't use r30 to avoid breaking Go lang

[Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>]

Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au> writes:
> The Go runtime uses r30 for some special value called 'g'. It assumes
> that value will remain unchanged even when calling VDSO functions.
> Although r30 is non-volatile across function calls, the callee is free
> to use it, as long as the callee saves the value and restores it before
> returning.
>
> It used to be true by accident that the VDSO didn't use r30, because the
> VDSO was hand-written asm. When we switched to building the VDSO from C
> the compiler started using r30, at least in some builds, leading to
> crashes in Go. eg:
>
>   ~/go/src$ ./all.bash
>   Building Go cmd/dist using /usr/lib/go-1.16. (go1.16.2 linux/ppc64le)
>   Building Go toolchain1 using /usr/lib/go-1.16.
>   go build os/exec: /usr/lib/go-1.16/pkg/tool/linux_ppc64le/compile: signal: segmentation fault
>   go build reflect: /usr/lib/go-1.16/pkg/tool/linux_ppc64le/compile: signal: segmentation fault
>   go tool dist: FAILED: /usr/lib/go-1.16/bin/go install -gcflags=-l -tags=math_big_pure_go compiler_bootstrap bootstrap/cmd/...: exit status 1
>
> There are patches in flight to fix Go[1], but until they are released
> and widely deployed we can workaround it in the VDSO by avoiding use of
> r30.
>
> Note this only works with GCC, clang does not support -ffixed-rN.
>
> 1: https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/328110
>
> Fixes: ab037dd87a2f ("powerpc/vdso: Switch VDSO to generic C implementation.")
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # v5.11+

In practice, with GCC 10.3.0, that commit doesn't result in r30 being
used by the compiler.

It's commit 74205b3fc2ef ("powerpc/vdso: Add support for time
namespaces"), which went into v5.13-rc1, which causes r30 to be used in
__c_kernel_clock_gettime():

00000000000006e0 <__c_kernel_clock_gettime>:
 6e0:   0f 00 03 28     cmplwi  r3,15
 6e4:   ec 00 81 41     bgt     7d0 <__c_kernel_clock_gettime+0xf0>
 6e8:   01 00 20 39     li      r9,1
 6ec:   30 18 29 7d     slw     r9,r9,r3
 6f0:   83 08 2a 71     andi.   r10,r9,2179
 6f4:   fc 00 82 41     beq     7f0 <__c_kernel_clock_gettime+0x110>
 6f8:   e4 26 63 78     rldicr  r3,r3,4,59
 6fc:   ff 7f 20 3d     lis     r9,32767
 700:   f0 ff c1 fb     std     r30,-16(r1)
 704:   f8 ff e1 fb     std     r31,-8(r1)
 708:   14 1a c5 7c     add     r6,r5,r3
 70c:   ff ff 2b 61     ori     r11,r9,65535
 710:   00 00 05 81     lwz     r8,0(r5)
 714:   01 00 09 71     andi.   r9,r8,1
 718:   98 00 82 40     bne     7b0 <__c_kernel_clock_gettime+0xd0>
 71c:   ac 04 20 7c     lwsync
 720:   a6 42 cc 7f     mftb    r30


cheers