Re: [patch] x86, mm: avoid stale tlb entries by clearing prevmm_cpumask after switching mm

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Thu Feb 03 2011 - 16:06:34 EST



* Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 11:48 -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Suresh Siddha
> > <suresh.b.siddha@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > True. 'stale' is the wrong word. Do you want me to send a corrected one
> > > by replacing it with 'bogus'?
> >
> > Please.
> >
> > > my understanding is that unless we end up using that TLB entry, we will
> > > not have the issues like machine checks due to cacheability issues etc.
> > > If it is not global, upcoming cr3 change will flush it and meanwhile I
> > > don't think there is a scenario where we refer to these user-addresses.
> >
> > Quite possible. The situation I envisioned was the same speculative
> > memory access that causes the TLB fill to also cause a cache fill -
> > for a noncacheable region (because the bogus TLB entry sets the random
> > address to cacheable).
> >
> > And then what happens when somebody else accesses the same memory
> > noncacheably (through a valid TLB entry), and finds it in the cache?
> >
> > I dunno. Not really important. The important part is the "possible
> > random bogus TLB entry", the fact that the CPU can act strangely after
> > that is pretty much a given.
> >
>
> Ok. Updated patch appended.

Linus, the patch fine to me too.

Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx>

Do you want to apply it or should I?

Thanks,

Ingo
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/