Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v1 10/12] target/arm: Add the Cortex-A72

[Laurent Desnogues <laurent.desnogues@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 3:19 PM Edgar E. Iglesias
<edgar.iglesias@xilinx.com> wrote:
>
> Another A72 related thing I wanted to check with you. A month or two ago I was
> looking at an issue with Linux running very slowly on our models.
> Something that popped up was that Linux was running a couple of spectre related
> "workarounds" and "hardening" sequences on the QEMU A72s.
>
> There are a couple of bits in the ID_AARCH64_PFR0 register that
> Linux checks before enabling the sequences but I never found any
> documentation of them in the specs. Bits 56 and 60.
>
> In Linux these are refered to as:
> ID_AA64PFR0_CSV2_SHIFT
> ID_AA64PFR0_CSV3_SHIFT
>
> This is what we have in our tree:
>
>     cpu->gic_vprebits = 5;
>     define_arm_cp_regs(cpu, cortex_a57_a53_cp_reginfo);
>
>     /* Xilinx FIXUPs.  */
>     /* These indicate the BP hardening and KPTI aren't needed.  */
>     cpu->id_aa64pfr0 |= (uint64_t)1 << 56; /* BP.  */
>     cpu->id_aa64pfr0 |= (uint64_t)1 << 60; /* KPTI.  */
> }
>
> Do you know what these are?
> Should we be setting these in QEMU?

These fields are publicly documented in the system register specification:

https://developer.arm.com/products/architecture/cpu-architecture/a-profile/exploration-tools

These are ARMv8.5 fields, I don't think these should be set by default
for Cortex-A72. Of course nothing prevents you from defining a
specific CPU with these fields set to boot faster :-)  Or perhaps add
a property to override the default value of these registers?


Laurent