[PATCH 3/3] arm64: Add software workaround for Falkor erratum 1041

Shanker Donthineni shankerd at codeaurora.org
Thu Nov 9 07:22:31 PST 2017


Hi James,

On 11/09/2017 05:08 AM, James Morse wrote:
> Hi Shanker, Robin,
> 
> On 04/11/17 21:43, Shanker Donthineni wrote:
>> On 11/03/2017 10:11 AM, Robin Murphy wrote:
>>> On 03/11/17 03:27, Shanker Donthineni wrote:
>>>> The ARM architecture defines the memory locations that are permitted
>>>> to be accessed as the result of a speculative instruction fetch from
>>>> an exception level for which all stages of translation are disabled.
>>>> Specifically, the core is permitted to speculatively fetch from the
>>>> 4KB region containing the current program counter and next 4KB.
>>>>
>>>> When translation is changed from enabled to disabled for the running
>>>> exception level (SCTLR_ELn[M] changed from a value of 1 to 0), the
>>>> Falkor core may errantly speculatively access memory locations outside
>>>> of the 4KB region permitted by the architecture. The errant memory
>>>> access may lead to one of the following unexpected behaviors.
>>>>
>>>> 1) A System Error Interrupt (SEI) being raised by the Falkor core due
>>>>    to the errant memory access attempting to access a region of memory
>>>>    that is protected by a slave-side memory protection unit.
>>>> 2) Unpredictable device behavior due to a speculative read from device
>>>>    memory. This behavior may only occur if the instruction cache is
>>>>    disabled prior to or coincident with translation being changed from
>>>>    enabled to disabled.
>>>>
>>>> To avoid the errant behavior, software must execute an ISB immediately
>>>> prior to executing the MSR that will change SCTLR_ELn[M] from 1 to 0.
> 
> 
>>>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/assembler.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/assembler.h
>>>> index b6dfb4f..4c91efb 100644
>>>> --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/assembler.h
>>>> +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/assembler.h
>>>> @@ -30,6 +30,7 @@
>>>>  #include <asm/pgtable-hwdef.h>
>>>>  #include <asm/ptrace.h>
>>>>  #include <asm/thread_info.h>
>>>> +#include <asm/alternative.h>
>>>>  
>>>>  /*
>>>>   * Enable and disable interrupts.
>>>> @@ -514,6 +515,22 @@
>>>>   *   reg: the value to be written.
>>>>   */
>>>>  	.macro	write_sctlr, eln, reg
>>>> +#ifdef CONFIG_QCOM_FALKOR_ERRATUM_1041
>>>> +alternative_if ARM64_WORKAROUND_QCOM_FALKOR_E1041
>>>> +	tbnz    \reg, #0, 8000f          // enable MMU?
> 
> Won't this match any change that leaves the MMU enabled?
> 

Yes. No need to apply workaround if the MMU is going to be enabled.

> I think the macro is making this more confusing. Disabling the MMU is obvious
> from the call-site, (and really rare!). Trying to work it out from a macro makes
> it more complicated than necessary.
>

Not clear, are you suggesting not to use read{write}_sctlr() macros instead apply 
the workaround from the call-site based on the MMU-on status? If yes, It simplifies
the code logic but CONFIG_QCOM_FALKOR_ERRATUM_1041 references are scatter everywhere. 
 
> 
>>> Do we really need the branch here? It's not like enabling the MMU is
>>> something we do on the syscall fastpath, and I can't imagine an extra
>>> ISB hurts much (and is probably comparable to a mispredicted branch
> 
>> I don't have any strong opinion on whether to use an ISB conditionally
>> or unconditionally. Yes, the current kernel code is not touching
>> SCTLR_ELn register on the system call fast path. I would like to keep
>> it as a conditional ISB in case if the future kernel accesses the
>> SCTLR_ELn on the fast path. An extra ISB should not hurt a lot but I
>> believe it has more overhead than the TBZ+branch mis-prediction on Falkor
>> CPU. This patch has been tested on the real hardware to fix the problem.
> 
>> I'm open to change to an unconditional ISB if it's the better fix.
>>
>>> anyway). In fact, is there any noticeable hit on other
>>> microarchitectures if we save the alternative bother and just do it
>>> unconditionally always?
>>>
>>
>> I can't comment on the performance impacts of other CPUs since I don't
>> have access to their development platforms. I'll prefer alternatives
>> just to avoid the unnecessary overhead on future Qualcomm Datacenter
>> server CPUs and regression on other CPUs because of inserting an ISB
> 
> I think hiding errata on other CPUs is a good argument.
> 
> My suggestion would be:
>> #ifdef CONFIG_QCOM_FALKOR_ERRATUM_1041
>> 	isb
>> #endif
> 
> In head.S and efi-entry.S, as these run before alternatives.
> Then use alternatives to add just the isb in the mmu-off path for the other callers.
> 
> 

Thanks for your opinion on this one, I'll change to an unconditional ISB in v2 patch.
After this change the enable_mmu() issues two ISBs before writing to SCTLR_EL1. Are
you okay with this behavior?

 ENTRY(__enable_mmu)
        mrs     x1, ID_AA64MMFR0_EL1
        ubfx    x2, x1, #ID_AA64MMFR0_TGRAN_SHIFT, 4
        cmp     x2, #ID_AA64MMFR0_TGRAN_SUPPORTED
        b.ne    __no_granule_support
        update_early_cpu_boot_status 0, x1, x2
        adrp    x1, idmap_pg_dir
        adrp    x2, swapper_pg_dir
        msr     ttbr0_el1, x1                   // load TTBR0
        msr     ttbr1_el1, x2                   // load TTBR1
        isb
        write_sctlr el1, x0
        isb


>> prior to SCTLR_ELn register update. Let's see what rest of the ARM 
>> maintainers think about always using an ISB instead of alternatives.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> James
> 
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> 

-- 
Shanker Donthineni
Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc. as an affiliate of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is a member of the Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.



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