[PATCH] ARM: tegra: Remove redundant change to the CPSR in headsmp.S

Dave Martin dave.martin at linaro.org
Wed Sep 14 05:15:32 EDT 2011


On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 06:46:48PM -0700, Colin Cross wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Dave Martin <dave.martin at linaro.org> wrote:
> > Colin, can you comment on this?
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 05:00:53PM +0100, Dave Martin wrote:
> >> At secondary_startup, the MSR CPSR_cxsf, #0xd3 is not compatible
> >> with Thumb-2 and also unmasks asynchronous aborts (CPSR.A bit
> >> forced to zero -- this is probably unintentional).
> >>
> >> Any remotely sane bootloader should be putting each secondary CPU
> >> in the appropriate state _before_ entering the kernel anyway.
> >> Otherwise, disabling interrupts on entry to the kernel isn't going
> >> to fix it.
> >>
> >> Therefore this patch just removes the MSR instruction.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Dave Martin <dave.martin at linaro.org>
> >> ---
> >>
> >> I make assumptions about the bootloader in this patch.  If someone with
> >> Tegra knowledge can please comment and/or test, that would be much
> >> appreciated, thanks.
> >>
> >>  arch/arm/mach-tegra/headsmp.S |    1 -
> >>  1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/arch/arm/mach-tegra/headsmp.S b/arch/arm/mach-tegra/headsmp.S
> >> index b5349b2..6ec4790 100644
> >> --- a/arch/arm/mach-tegra/headsmp.S
> >> +++ b/arch/arm/mach-tegra/headsmp.S
> >> @@ -48,7 +48,6 @@ ENTRY(v7_invalidate_l1)
> >>  ENDPROC(v7_invalidate_l1)
> >>
> >>  ENTRY(tegra_secondary_startup)
> >> -     msr     cpsr_fsxc, #0xd3
> >>          bl      v7_invalidate_l1
> >>       mrc     p15, 0, r0, c0, c0, 5
> >>          and  r0, r0, #15
> >
> > My rationale here is that the CPU boots straight into the
> > correct mode -- if there is any boot code before we get here,
> > then it should already have established the correct mode, otherwise
> > we're likely to get problems which "MSR" by itself isn't going to
> > fix -- such as stray interrupts for example.
> >
> > If that feels unsafe however, we should still to be able to write
> >
> >        cpsid   aif, #SVC_MODE
> >
> > (which is the compact v6/v7-compatible way to set all the interrupt
> > mask bits and get into a specific mode)
> 
> Tegra boots with one cpu enabled, and the other in reset.  The cpu
> needs to be initialized from scratch by the kernel.  Does cpsid aif,
> #SVC_MODE compile to the same instruction as the msr instruction?

CPUs power on in SVC mode with all interrupts masked, so it should
be safe to assume that the CPU is already in this state (this is actually
_required_ by Documentation/arm/Booting).  If the CPU booted with a
random mode and random interrupt masks, no system could boot reliably...

However, it's harmless to set the state explicitly if we want to be
extra safe.

My assumption is that the unmasking of asynchronous aborts done by
msr CPSR_cxsf, #0xd3 is unintentional -- i.e., this is a copy-paste
of code which would have been correct prior to ARMv6 (when there
was no separate 'A' interrupt class).

cps is a distinct instruction, introduced in ARMv6.
The advantages are that it can be used to control the A bit, and
doesn't clobber the T bit (or other CPSR bits).
Since mach-tegra doesn't apply to any platform older than ARMv6,
use of this instruction seems reasonable.

cpsid aif disables all three kinds of interrupt.


With regard to Thumb-2 kernels, what code is responsible for
performing the jump to tegra_secondary_startup?

If the jump is done by making an exception return from some firmware,
you may find you hit tegra_secondary_starup in ARM state, and
everything will go horribly wrong...

It could be worth making the secondary kernel entry point ARM code
unconditionally (just as is now done for the primary kernel entry
point).

Cheers
---Dave



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