[PATCH 0/2] Detect and handle I-cache aliases when D-cache is non-aliasing

Will Deacon will.deacon at arm.com
Wed Aug 18 06:48:57 EDT 2010


Hi Russell,

> Last month, I posted some patches to fix ptrace software breakpoints:
> 
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2010-July/020649.html
> 
> One of these patches added a workaround for a hardware erratum, so I
> have submitted that to the patch system. The other patch simply called
> __flush_icache_all() in flush_ptrace_access to avoid having to worry
> about I-cache aliases when cache_is_vipt_nonaliasing() is true. This
> isn't ideal if the debugger decides to insert lots of software breakpoints
> sequentially (for example, when single-stepping a number of times).
> 
> These two patches add proper identification of aliasing I-caches
> when the D-cache is nonaliasing. flush_ptrace_access can then
> flush only the relevant I-cache lines instead of the entire cache.
> 
> Cc: Russell King - ARM Linux <linux at arm.linux.org.uk>
> Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas at arm.com>
> 
> Will Deacon (2):
>   ARM: setup: detect aliasing I-cache when D-cache is non-aliasing
>   ARM: flush_ptrace_access: invalidate correct I-cache alias
> 
>  arch/arm/include/asm/cachetype.h |    8 ++++++--
>  arch/arm/kernel/setup.c          |   38 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>  arch/arm/mm/flush.c              |   23 ++++++++++++++++++++---
>  3 files changed, 61 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

Any thoughts on these patches? I prefer them to my previous approach but
I'd like a second opinion.

Thanks,

Will





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