[PATCH RFC] arm64/irqflags: force inline of arch_local_irq_enable()

[Mark Rutland]

On Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 06:15:24AM -0700, Breno Leitao wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 02:06:23PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 05:42:11AM -0700, Breno Leitao wrote:
> > > arch_local_irq_enable() is a small wrapper that dispatches between two
> > > unmask paths: __daif_local_irq_enable() on most systems, and
> > > __pmr_local_irq_enable() on builds that use GIC PMR-based masking
> > > (Pseudo-NMI). Both leaf primitives are already __always_inline; the
> > > wrapper itself is plain "static inline".
> > >
> > > In practice the compiler does not always inline the wrapper.
> >
> > I think this was my mistake, and we should have marked all the helpers
> > as __always_inline for noinstr safety, as x86 did in commit:
> >
> >   7a745be1cc90 ("x86/entry: __always_inline irqflags for noinstr")
> >
> > I think we should mark all of the following as __always_inline in one
> > go:
> >
> > * arch_local_irq_enable()
> > * arch_local_irq_disable()
> > * arch_local_save_flags()
> > * arch_irqs_disabled_flags()
> > * arch_irqs_disabled()
> > * arch_local_irq_save()
> > * arch_local_irq_restore()
> >
> > ... which then ensures noinstr safety, and has the side benefit of
> > giving nicer traces as you're suggesting here.
> >
> > Are you happy to try that?
> 
> Absolutely, I'll work on testing it that and put together a patch
> addressing all of them.
> 
> Should this be targeted for stable backports as well? If so, which
> commit should I reference in the Fixes tag?

I don't think we need to worry about backporting, and can do this as a
cleanup for now unless someone shouts that they're seeing brokenness in
a stable kernel.

There's no specific commit for a fixes tag; this has always been a bit
dodgy, but we've evidently been getting away with it in practice.

Mark.