[PATCH v4 4/7] arm64: Handle early CPU boot failures

Mark Rutland mark.rutland at arm.com
Wed Feb 3 09:53:51 PST 2016


On Wed, Feb 03, 2016 at 05:34:49PM +0000, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 03, 2016 at 04:46:32PM +0000, Mark Rutland wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 03, 2016 at 12:57:38PM +0000, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 06:07:02PM +0000, Suzuki K. Poulose wrote:
> > > > + * update_early_cpu_boot_status tmp, status
> > > > + *  - Corrupts tmp, x0, x1
> > > > + *  - Writes 'status' to __early_cpu_boot_status and makes sure
> > > > + *    it is committed to memory.
> > > > + */
> > > > +
> > > > +	.macro	update_early_cpu_boot_status tmp, status
> > > > +	mov	\tmp, lr
> > > > +	adrp	x0, __early_cpu_boot_status
> > > > +	add	x0, x0, #:lo12:__early_cpu_boot_status
> > > 
> > > Nitpick: you could use the adr_l macro.
> > > 
> > > > +	mov	x1, #\status
> > > > +	str	x1, [x0]
> > > > +	add	x1, x0, 4
> > > > +	bl	__inval_cache_range
> > > > +	mov	lr, \tmp
> > > > +	.endm
> > > 
> > > If the CPU that's currently booting has the MMU off, what's the point of
> > > invalidating the cache here?
> > 
> > To invalidate stale lines for this address, held in any caches prior to
> > the PoC. I'm assuming that __early_cpu_boot_status is sufficiently
> > padded to the CWG.
> 
> I would have rather invalidated it before writing the [x0], if that's
> what it's aimed at.

That alone wouldn't not be sufficient, due to speculative fetches
allocating new (clean) lines prior to the write completing.

I was expecting the CWG-aligned region to only be written to with the
MMU off, i.e. we'd only have clean stale lines and no dirty lines.

> > Cache maintenance works when SCTLR_ELx.M == 0, though barriers are
> > required prior to cache maintenance as non-cacheable accesses do not
> > hazard by VA.
> > 
> > The MMU being off has no effect on the cache maintenance itself.
> 
> I know, but whether it has an effect on other CPUs is a different
> question (it probably has). Anyway, I would rather do the invalidation
> on the CPU that actually reads this status.

My only worry would be how this gets ordered against the (non-cacheable)
store. I guess we'd complete that with a DSB SY regardless.

Given that, I have no problem doing the invalidate on the read side.
Assuming we only write from the side with the MMU off, we don't need
maintenance on that side.

> > > The operation may not even be broadcast to the other CPU. So you
> > > actually need the invalidation before reading the status on the
> > > primary CPU.
> > 
> > We require that CPUs are coherent when they enter the kernel, so any
> > cache maintenance operation _must_ affect all coherent caches (i.e. it
> > must be broadcast and must affect all coherent caches prior to the PoC
> > in this case).
> 
> In general, if you perform cache maintenance on a non-shareable mapping,
> I don't think it would be broadcast. But in this case, the MMU is off,
> data accesses default to Device_nGnRnE and considered outer shareable,
> so it may actually work. Is this stated anywhere in the ARM ARM?

In ARM DDI 0487A.h, D4.2.8 "The effects of disabling a stage of address
translation" we state:

	Cache maintenance instructions act on the target cache
	regardless of whether any stages of address translation are
	disabled, and regardless of the values of the memory attributes.
	However, if a stage of address translation is disabled, they use
	the flat address mapping for that translation stage.

Thanks,
Mark.



More information about the linux-arm-kernel mailing list