[RESEND PATCH v6 1/3] arm64: Add BBM Level 2 cpu feature

Will Deacon will at kernel.org
Tue May 6 07:25:09 PDT 2025


On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 03:35:14PM +0000, Mikołaj Lenczewski wrote:
> The Break-Before-Make cpu feature supports multiple levels (levels 0-2),
> and this commit adds a dedicated BBML2 cpufeature to test against
> support for, as well as a kernel commandline parameter to optionally
> disable BBML2 altogether.
> 
> This is a system feature as we might have a big.LITTLE architecture
> where some cores support BBML2 and some don't, but we want all cores to
> be available and BBM to default to level 0 (as opposed to having cores
> without BBML2 not coming online).
> 
> To support BBML2 in as wide a range of contexts as we can, we want not
> only the architectural guarantees that BBML2 makes, but additionally
> want BBML2 to not create TLB conflict aborts. Not causing aborts avoids
> us having to prove that no recursive faults can be induced in any path
> that uses BBML2, allowing its use for arbitrary kernel mappings.
> Support detection of such CPUs.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mikołaj Lenczewski <miko.lenczewski at arm.com>
> Reviewed-by: Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose at arm.com>
> Reviewed-by: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts at arm.com>
> ---
>  .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt         |  3 +
>  arch/arm64/Kconfig                            | 19 +++++
>  arch/arm64/include/asm/cpucaps.h              |  2 +
>  arch/arm64/include/asm/cpufeature.h           |  5 ++
>  arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c                | 71 +++++++++++++++++++
>  arch/arm64/kernel/pi/idreg-override.c         |  2 +
>  arch/arm64/tools/cpucaps                      |  1 +
>  7 files changed, 103 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> index d9fd26b95b34..2749c67a4f07 100644
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> @@ -449,6 +449,9 @@
>  	arm64.no32bit_el0 [ARM64] Unconditionally disable the execution of
>  			32 bit applications.
>  
> +	arm64.nobbml2	[ARM64] Unconditionally disable Break-Before-Make Level
> +			2 support

Hmm, I'm not sure we really want this. It opens up the door for folks to
pass 'id_aa64mmfr2.bbm=2' without updating the allow-list which feels
like it's going to make crashes harder to reason about.

Is there a compelling reason to add this right now?

>  	arm64.nobti	[ARM64] Unconditionally disable Branch Target
>  			Identification support
>  
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/Kconfig b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
> index a182295e6f08..613b4925ca06 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/Kconfig
> +++ b/arch/arm64/Kconfig
> @@ -2070,6 +2070,25 @@ config ARM64_TLB_RANGE
>  	  The feature introduces new assembly instructions, and they were
>  	  support when binutils >= 2.30.
>  
> +config ARM64_BBML2_NOABORT
> +	bool "Enable support for Break-Before-Make Level 2 detection and usage"
> +	default y

I don't think we need a new Kconfig option for this. It's a
kernel-internal detail and I'd prefer not to fragment the testing base.

> diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c
> index 9c4d6d552b25..7a85a1bdc6e9 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c
> +++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c
> @@ -2200,6 +2200,70 @@ static bool hvhe_possible(const struct arm64_cpu_capabilities *entry,
>  	return arm64_test_sw_feature_override(ARM64_SW_FEATURE_OVERRIDE_HVHE);
>  }
>  
> +static bool cpu_has_bbml2_noabort(unsigned int cpu_midr)
> +{
> +	/*
> +	 * We want to allow usage of bbml2 in as wide a range of kernel contexts
> +	 * as possible. This list is therefore an allow-list of known-good
> +	 * implementations that both support bbml2 and additionally, fulfill the
> +	 * extra constraint of never generating TLB conflict aborts when using
> +	 * the relaxed bbml2 semantics (such aborts make use of bbml2 in certain
> +	 * kernel contexts difficult to prove safe against recursive aborts).
> +	 *
> +	 * Note that implementations can only be considered "known-good" if their
> +	 * implementors attest to the fact that the implementation never raises
> +	 * TLBI conflict aborts for bbml2 mapping granularity changes.
> +	 */
> +	static const struct midr_range supports_bbml2_noabort_list[] = {
> +		MIDR_REV_RANGE(MIDR_CORTEX_X4, 0, 3, 0xf),
> +		MIDR_REV_RANGE(MIDR_NEOVERSE_V3, 0, 2, 0xf),
> +		{}
> +	};
> +
> +	return is_midr_in_range_list(cpu_midr, supports_bbml2_noabort_list);

This doesn't compile against latest mainline as is_midr_in_range_list()
no longer takes the midr.

> +static bool has_bbml2_noabort(const struct arm64_cpu_capabilities *caps, int scope)
> +{
> +	if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARM64_BBML2_NOABORT))
> +		return false;
> +
> +	if (scope & SCOPE_SYSTEM) {
> +		int cpu;
> +
> +		/*
> +		 * We are a boot CPU, and must verify that all enumerated boot
> +		 * CPUs have MIDR values within our allowlist. Otherwise, we do
> +		 * not allow the BBML2 feature to avoid potential faults when
> +		 * the insufficient CPUs access memory regions using BBML2
> +		 * semantics.
> +		 */
> +		for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
> +			if (!cpu_has_bbml2_noabort(cpu_read_midr(cpu)))
> +				return false;
> +		}

This penalises large homogeneous systems and it feels unnecessary given
that we have the ability to check this per-CPU. Can you use
ARM64_CPUCAP_BOOT_CPU_FEATURE instead of ARM64_CPUCAP_SYSTEM_FEATURE
to solve this?

Will



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