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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2011-07-22 17:05:15 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2011-07-22 17:05:15 -0700
commit8e204874db000928e37199c2db82b7eb8966cc3c (patch)
treeeae66035cb761c3c5a79e98b92280b5156bc01ef /Documentation/x86
parent3e0b8df79ddb8955d2cce5e858972a9cfe763384 (diff)
parentaafade242ff24fac3aabf61c7861dfa44a3c2445 (diff)
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Merge branch 'x86-vdso-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip
* 'x86-vdso-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip: x86-64, vdso: Do not allocate memory for the vDSO clocksource: Change __ARCH_HAS_CLOCKSOURCE_DATA to a CONFIG option x86, vdso: Drop now wrong comment Document the vDSO and add a reference parser ia64: Replace clocksource.fsys_mmio with generic arch data x86-64: Move vread_tsc and vread_hpet into the vDSO clocksource: Replace vread with generic arch data x86-64: Add --no-undefined to vDSO build x86-64: Allow alternative patching in the vDSO x86: Make alternative instruction pointers relative x86-64: Improve vsyscall emulation CS and RIP handling x86-64: Emulate legacy vsyscalls x86-64: Fill unused parts of the vsyscall page with 0xcc x86-64: Remove vsyscall number 3 (venosys) x86-64: Map the HPET NX x86-64: Remove kernel.vsyscall64 sysctl x86-64: Give vvars their own page x86-64: Document some of entry_64.S x86-64: Fix alignment of jiffies variable
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+This file documents some of the kernel entries in
+arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S. A lot of this explanation is adapted from
+an email from Ingo Molnar:
+
+http://lkml.kernel.org/r/<20110529191055.GC9835%40elte.hu>
+
+The x86 architecture has quite a few different ways to jump into
+kernel code. Most of these entry points are registered in
+arch/x86/kernel/traps.c and implemented in arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
+and arch/x86/ia32/ia32entry.S.
+
+The IDT vector assignments are listed in arch/x86/include/irq_vectors.h.
+
+Some of these entries are:
+
+ - system_call: syscall instruction from 64-bit code.
+
+ - ia32_syscall: int 0x80 from 32-bit or 64-bit code; compat syscall
+ either way.
+
+ - ia32_syscall, ia32_sysenter: syscall and sysenter from 32-bit
+ code
+
+ - interrupt: An array of entries. Every IDT vector that doesn't
+ explicitly point somewhere else gets set to the corresponding
+ value in interrupts. These point to a whole array of
+ magically-generated functions that make their way to do_IRQ with
+ the interrupt number as a parameter.
+
+ - emulate_vsyscall: int 0xcc, a special non-ABI entry used by
+ vsyscall emulation.
+
+ - APIC interrupts: Various special-purpose interrupts for things
+ like TLB shootdown.
+
+ - Architecturally-defined exceptions like divide_error.
+
+There are a few complexities here. The different x86-64 entries
+have different calling conventions. The syscall and sysenter
+instructions have their own peculiar calling conventions. Some of
+the IDT entries push an error code onto the stack; others don't.
+IDT entries using the IST alternative stack mechanism need their own
+magic to get the stack frames right. (You can find some
+documentation in the AMD APM, Volume 2, Chapter 8 and the Intel SDM,
+Volume 3, Chapter 6.)
+
+Dealing with the swapgs instruction is especially tricky. Swapgs
+toggles whether gs is the kernel gs or the user gs. The swapgs
+instruction is rather fragile: it must nest perfectly and only in
+single depth, it should only be used if entering from user mode to
+kernel mode and then when returning to user-space, and precisely
+so. If we mess that up even slightly, we crash.
+
+So when we have a secondary entry, already in kernel mode, we *must
+not* use SWAPGS blindly - nor must we forget doing a SWAPGS when it's
+not switched/swapped yet.
+
+Now, there's a secondary complication: there's a cheap way to test
+which mode the CPU is in and an expensive way.
+
+The cheap way is to pick this info off the entry frame on the kernel
+stack, from the CS of the ptregs area of the kernel stack:
+
+ xorl %ebx,%ebx
+ testl $3,CS+8(%rsp)
+ je error_kernelspace
+ SWAPGS
+
+The expensive (paranoid) way is to read back the MSR_GS_BASE value
+(which is what SWAPGS modifies):
+
+ movl $1,%ebx
+ movl $MSR_GS_BASE,%ecx
+ rdmsr
+ testl %edx,%edx
+ js 1f /* negative -> in kernel */
+ SWAPGS
+ xorl %ebx,%ebx
+1: ret
+
+and the whole paranoid non-paranoid macro complexity is about whether
+to suffer that RDMSR cost.
+
+If we are at an interrupt or user-trap/gate-alike boundary then we can
+use the faster check: the stack will be a reliable indicator of
+whether SWAPGS was already done: if we see that we are a secondary
+entry interrupting kernel mode execution, then we know that the GS
+base has already been switched. If it says that we interrupted
+user-space execution then we must do the SWAPGS.
+
+But if we are in an NMI/MCE/DEBUG/whatever super-atomic entry context,
+which might have triggered right after a normal entry wrote CS to the
+stack but before we executed SWAPGS, then the only safe way to check
+for GS is the slower method: the RDMSR.
+
+So we try only to mark those entry methods 'paranoid' that absolutely
+need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we generate all
+'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) entry macros.
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