ARM errata 430973 on multi platform kernels

Sebastian Reichel sre at kernel.org
Sun Apr 5 06:39:34 PDT 2015


Hi,

On Sun, Apr 05, 2015 at 06:13:47AM +0200, Matthijs van Duin wrote:
> On 4 April 2015 at 00:52, Tony Lindgren <tony at atomide.com> wrote:
> > Right, it affects n900 for sure. My point is that it also seems to
> > affect 37xx versions not listed to suffer from this issue.
> 
> They shouldn't... erratum 430973 only affected Cortex-A8 r1, and the
> dm37xx should have an r3p2 right?
> 
> A word of caution though: at least on the DM814x and AM335x, secure
> ROM sets bit 6 (IBE) in the Auxiliary Control Register, thereby
> enabling BTB invalidate instructions (which normally execute as nops).
> This is presumably a leftover of the erratum 430973 workaround, but it
> means there is a risk of running afoul of erratum 687067 if BTB
> invalidate by MVA instructions are actually used.
> 
> I would actually suggest clearing IBE if it set on Cortex-A8 r2 or
> later processors and a secure monitor call is available to do so
> (there is on the DM814x and AM335x, dunno about the 37xx), also for
> performance reasons: BTB invalidates are quite expensive instructions
> (when enabled).

So if I understand the issue correct, it would be ok to enable the
430973 workaround in cpu_v7_switch_mm for arm multiplatform kernels
(mcr p15, 0, r2, c7, c5, 6 @ flush BTAC/BTB). On unaffected
Cortex-A8 platforms the IBE bit should be unset (resulting in a nop
instead of the BTB flush).

So assuming, that the same is true for non Cortex-A8 platforms: Can
the workaround simply be enabled by default if CPU_V7 is selected?

-- Sebastian
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