Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] x86/cpu: Fix SMAP check in PVOPS environments

[Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/06/15 07:38, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 06/03/2015 02:31 AM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
>> There appears to be no formal statement of what pv_irq_ops.save_fl() is
>> supposed to return precisely.  Native returns the full flags, while lguest 
>> and
>> Xen only return the Interrupt Flag, and both have comments by the
>> implementations stating that only the Interrupt Flag is looked at.  This may
>> have been true when initially implemented, but no longer is.
>>
>> To make matters worse, the Xen PVOP leaves the upper bits undefined, making
>> the BUG_ON() undefined behaviour.  Experimentally, this now trips for 32bit 
>> PV
>> guests on Broadwell hardware.  The BUG_ON() is consistent for an individual
>> build, but not consistent for all builds.  It has also been a sitting 
>> timebomb
>> since SMAP support was introduced.
>>
>> Use native_save_fl() instead, which will obtain an accurate view of the AC
>> flag.
> Could we fix the Xen pvops wrapper instead to not do things like this?
>
>       -hpa
>
>

We could, and I have a patch for that, but the check would still then be
broken in lguest, and it makes a hotpath rather longer.

Either pv_irq_ops.save_fl() gets defined to handle all flags, and Xen &
lguest need correcting in this regard, or save_fl() gets defined to
handle the interrupt flag only, and this becomes the single problematic
caller in the codebase.

The problem with expanding save_fl() to handle all flags is that
restore_fl() should follow suit, and there are a number of system flags
are inapplicable in such a situation.

~Andrew

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