From: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
To: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] perf/ring_buffer: ensure atomicity and order of updates
Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 17:42:34 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20180523164234.GJ2983@arm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20180510130632.34497-1-mark.rutland@arm.com>
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 02:06:32PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> Userspace can read/write the user page at any point in time, and in
> perf_output_put_handle() we're very careful to use memory barriers to
> ensure ordering between updates to data and the user page.
>
> We don't use barriers when updating aux_head, where similar ordering
> constraints apply. This could result in userspace seeing stale data, or
> data being overwritten while userspace was still consuming it.
>
> Further, we update data_head and aux_head with plain assignments, which
> the compiler can tear, potentially resulting in userspace seeing
> erroneous values.
>
> We can solve both of these problems by using smp_store_release to update
> data_head and aux_head, so let's do so.
>
> Signed-off-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
> Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
> ---
> kernel/events/ring_buffer.c | 13 ++++++-------
> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/events/ring_buffer.c b/kernel/events/ring_buffer.c
> index 6c6b3c48db71..839b207e4c77 100644
> --- a/kernel/events/ring_buffer.c
> +++ b/kernel/events/ring_buffer.c
> @@ -63,10 +63,10 @@ static void perf_output_put_handle(struct perf_output_handle *handle)
> * kernel user
> *
> * if (LOAD ->data_tail) { LOAD ->data_head
> - * (A) smp_rmb() (C)
> + * (A) smp_rmb() (C)
> * STORE $data LOAD $data
> - * smp_wmb() (B) smp_mb() (D)
> - * STORE ->data_head STORE ->data_tail
> + * smp_mb() (D)
> + * RELEASE ->data_head (B) STORE ->data_tail
> * }
One thing to be aware of here is that the choice of ordering primitive (e.g.
using fences vs acquire/release operations) has the potential to create
ABI with userspace. I don't know of any architectures which currently care,
but if were were to merge a non multi-copy atomic architecture with native
acquire/release instructions, you could see issues if e.g. userspace used
smp_rmb(); READ_ONCE but the kernel used a RELEASE store.
Anyway, that's currently theoretical, but I think it's an argument for
putting these accessors in a uapi header.
Will
prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-05-23 16:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-05-10 13:06 [PATCH] perf/ring_buffer: ensure atomicity and order of updates Mark Rutland
2018-05-11 1:19 ` kbuild test robot
2018-05-11 1:19 ` kbuild test robot
2018-05-11 10:59 ` Mark Rutland
2018-05-11 16:22 ` Peter Zijlstra
2018-05-14 11:05 ` Mark Rutland
2018-05-14 11:28 ` Peter Zijlstra
2018-05-14 15:02 ` Peter Zijlstra
2018-05-14 15:20 ` Mark Rutland
2018-05-14 15:24 ` Peter Zijlstra
2018-05-23 16:42 ` Will Deacon [this message]
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