Re: [RFC please help] membarrier: Rewrite sync_core_before_usermode()

[Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 12:18 PM Mathieu Desnoyers
<mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> wrote:
>
> ----- On Dec 27, 2020, at 1:28 PM, Andy Lutomirski luto@kernel.org wrote:
>

> >
> > I admit that I'm rather surprised that the code worked at all on arm64,
> > and I'm suspicious that it has never been very well tested.  My apologies
> > for not reviewing this more carefully in the first place.
>
> Please refer to Documentation/features/sched/membarrier-sync-core/arch-support.txt
>
> It clearly states that only arm, arm64, powerpc and x86 support the membarrier
> sync core feature as of now:

Sigh, I missed arm (32).  Russell or ARM folks, what's the right
incantation to make the CPU notice instruction changes initiated by
other cores on 32-bit ARM?

>
>
> # Architecture requirements
> #
> # * arm/arm64/powerpc
> #
> # Rely on implicit context synchronization as a result of exception return
> # when returning from IPI handler, and when returning to user-space.
> #
> # * x86
> #
> # x86-32 uses IRET as return from interrupt, which takes care of the IPI.
> # However, it uses both IRET and SYSEXIT to go back to user-space. The IRET
> # instruction is core serializing, but not SYSEXIT.
> #
> # x86-64 uses IRET as return from interrupt, which takes care of the IPI.
> # However, it can return to user-space through either SYSRETL (compat code),
> # SYSRETQ, or IRET.
> #
> # Given that neither SYSRET{L,Q}, nor SYSEXIT, are core serializing, we rely
> # instead on write_cr3() performed by switch_mm() to provide core serialization
> # after changing the current mm, and deal with the special case of kthread ->
> # uthread (temporarily keeping current mm into active_mm) by issuing a
> # sync_core_before_usermode() in that specific case.
>

I need to update that document as part of my series.

> This is based on direct feedback from the architecture maintainers.
>
> You seem to have noticed odd cases on arm64 where this guarantee does not
> match reality. Where exactly can we find this in the code, and which part
> of the architecture manual can you point us to which supports your concern ?
>
> Based on the notes I have, use of `eret` on aarch64 guarantees a context synchronizing
> instruction when returning to user-space.

Based on my reading of the manual, ERET on ARM doesn't synchronize
anything at all.  I can't find any evidence that it synchronizes data
or instructions, and I've seen reports that the CPU will happily
speculate right past it.

--Andy