Re: [PATCH v3 00/15] ACPI: CPPC: Fix register access and lifetime bugs

[Christian Loehle]

On 8/9/26 07:25, Christian Loehle wrote:
> First of all, sorry this got so out of hand, initially this was just
> trying to fix some relatively simple issues found by sashiko in an
> earlier (unrelated) series.
> But with me touching more and more code and going through rounds of AI
> review that kept finding more and more pre-existing issues I've arrived
> at this.
> 
> This series fixes correctness and robustness issues found while reviewing
> the CPPC control path. They affect malformed _CPC handling, error
> propagation, PCC ownership and cleanup, CPC object lifetime, register field
> access, cross-processor aliases, and Performance Limited clearing.
> 
> Series structure
> ================
> 
> Patches 1-8 are deliberately small, independently useful fixes. They
> validate the _CPC encoding consumed by cppc-acpi, propagate control-write
> errors, serialize PCC payload updates, correct 64-bit field masks, and fix
> descriptor and PCC lifetime handling.
> 
> Patches 9-15 are the register-layout hardening portion. Geometry validation
> is more substantial because safe RMW and alias handling depend on the
> physical access unit, not merely on a logical _CPC entry or _PSD domain.
> These patches normalize and validate each supported address space before
> building probe-only physical interval registries. Keeping this work in the
> same posting gives the complete safety boundary and a single base for
> review, while each transport and bug retains its own Fixes provenance.
> Feel free to treat the two parts as independent series, I didn't split it
> because they're all technically fixes and to get Sashiko review for the
> whole lot.
> 
> No interval lookup is added to the scheduler hot path. Full-width
> SystemMemory writes remain lockless. RMW locking remains necessary only for
> a partial field, where we must preserve the other bits in its access
> unit. The existing per-descriptor raw lock continues to cover disjoint
> partial fields within one _CPC package; probe rejects cross-descriptor
> layouts that it cannot protect.
> 
> Parsing and control semantics
> =============================
> 
> The parser now validates the package header before indexing it, bounds the
> BYTE and DWORD Integer forms before conversion, and validates the Generic
> Register descriptor consumed by cppc-acpi. NumEntries may not exceed the AML
> package count, but additional trailing package elements are ignored because
> doing so is safe and preserves compatibility with padded firmware. The parser
> likewise tolerates trailing ResourceTemplate data instead of imposing a new
> EndTag compatibility requirement.
> 
> Writable controls must be Buffer-encoded registers. Minimum and Maximum
> Performance are checked as the pair required by ACPI 6.6 Sections
> 8.4.6.1.2.1 and 8.4.6.1.2.2. Object presence is kept separate from the
> Integer-zero convention for absent optional fields, so Lowest Performance
> may retain the valid abstract value zero.
> 
> Performance Limited is one deliberate compatibility exception. ACPI lists
> it as required, but permits a platform with no limiting indication to
> always return zero, and deployed firmware represents that case with a NULL
> descriptor. CPPC control does not depend on this status register, so we
> continue to accept that encoding. A present _CPC package which otherwise
> fails parsing or initialization now emits an error instead of silently
> preventing cpufreq registration.
> 
> Compound performance and EPP updates propagate errors and perform every
> fallible non-PCC write before modifying the PCC payload. Updates across
> address spaces cannot be atomic, but a known non-PCC failure can no longer
> commit only the PCC portion or leave an unsent value for a later command.
> 
> SystemMemory locking and support boundary
> =========================================
> 
> A partial SystemMemory field requires RMW to preserve the rest of its
> access unit. Commit 60949b7b8054 ("ACPI: CPPC: Fix MASK_VAL() usage") used
> a per-_CPC lock and noted that a global lock would be needed if physical
> registers were shared between packages.
> 
> ACPI does not make _PSD a physical-register ownership boundary. Rather than
> put a global raw lock or lookup into the scheduler path, this series makes
> the cheaper per-descriptor model's assumptions enforceable at probe.
> 
> Supported SystemMemory layouts are:
> 
>   - naturally aligned 8-, 16-, 32-, and 64-bit access units;
>   - lockless full-width controls;
>   - read-only aliases;
>   - exact full-width writable aliases, including 64-bit aliases on 64-bit
>     kernels;
>   - disjoint partial writers within one descriptor, serialized by its
>     rmw_lock; and
>   - a partial writer sharing an access unit with a disjoint read-only
>     field.
> 
> Probe rejects overlapping logical fields involving a writer, another field
> inside a full-width writable access unit, cross-descriptor partial writers,
> unaligned accesses, and exact writable 64-bit aliases on 32-bit kernels.
> These layouts were not safely supported by the old per-descriptor lock or
> generic writeq(); rejecting them turns possible corruption into a visible
> probe failure rather than removing working support.
> 
> PCC access and locking
> ======================
> 
> The PCC protocol requires OSPM to acquire the subspace before changing its
> command or payload. Single-register and EPP updates now hold pcc_lock
> across ownership acquisition, payload staging, and command submission.
> 
> ACPI 6.6's implementation example places a mandatory 32-bit Delivered
> Performance Counter at unaligned PCC offset 0x116. Performance controls may
> also use byte-multiple widths such as 24 bits. PCC therefore uses
> byte-oriented I/O with explicit little-endian encoding for zero-offset,
> byte-multiple fields from 8 through 64 bits. A short per-subspace payload
> lock protects concurrent aliased copies made under the shared side of
> pcc_lock; it does not replace the protocol ownership lock.
> 
> Bit-level PCC fields require RMW and remain unsupported. An unsupported
> optional field is marked absent, but a present inaccessible CPPC Enable
> fails probe because OSPM must write it before using CPPC. Thus the
> ACPI-legal one-bit CPPC Enable used by the specification example is a
> documented kernel limitation. The old accessor could not program it
> correctly either, so an explicit error is safer than silently proceeding
> without enabling CPPC.
> 
> Every retained PCC field is bounds checked against the shared-memory
> region. A subspace-keyed interval registry permits read-only overlap and
> exact same-control aliases while rejecting every other writable overlap
> across processors.
> 
> SystemIO support boundary
> =========================
> 
> SystemIO supports Bit Offset zero, full 8-, 16-, or 32-bit accesses ending
> at or below port 0xffff, including legacy Access Size zero when Bit Width
> supplies the size. Partial fields never worked because the driver neither
> shifted them nor preserved adjacent bits, so they now fail visibly instead
> of being misprogrammed.
> 
> On kernels without CONFIG_HAS_IOPORT, SystemIO entries are rejected or
> disabled according to the affected control's semantics. Runtime accessors
> also return -EOPNOTSUPP rather than treating an I/O port as a
> physical-memory address. A global port interval registry rejects
> cross-processor writable overlap.
> 
> Write-only and Performance Limited controls
> ===========================================
> 
> Between _CPC revisions 3 and 4, Desired Performance changed from
> Read/Write to Write, and revision 4 added write-only OSPM Nominal
> Performance. ACPI 6.6 Section 4.6.3 says reads from write-only positions
> are undefined. Explicit reads of both controls are rejected, as are
> SystemMemory layouts which would implicitly read them for RMW. Full-width
> writes remain supported.
> 
> Performance Limited is sticky, write-zero-to-clear, and requires
> interlocked accesses under ACPI 6.6 Section 8.4.6.1.3.2. The old separate
> read and write could clear a new event reported between transactions. The
> clear path now writes zero only to requested status bits and one to the
> other defined bits. Partial SystemMemory forms cannot be used because a
> spinlock cannot interlock an enclosing RMW with platform updates. QWord
> forms cannot be used on 32-bit kernels, where the MMIO accessor may be
> split into two 32-bit operations; naturally aligned, full-width QWords
> remain supported on 64-bit kernels. Since CPPC control does not depend on
> Performance Limited status, an unusable description disables that status
> register instead of rejecting the processor's otherwise usable _CPC.
> 
> Lifetime and cleanup
> ====================
> 
> CPC descriptors are released through their kobject callback, keeping their
> storage and mappings alive for outstanding sysfs references. Every PCC
> allocation, reference, and acquired channel is unwound on probe failure,
> and the per-CPU PCC index is initialized before every early return. PCC
> allocation uses a separate temporary result, so its success cannot turn a
> later parse failure into a successful probe return.
> 
> Changes since v2
> ================
> 
>   - Relaxed the exact NumEntries/package-count match to tolerate safe trailing
>     package elements while still rejecting any count that could cause an
>     out-of-bounds walk.
>   - Made patch 10 independently preserve immutable-autonomous setups whose
>     inaccessible Desired Performance register requires RMW, rather than
>     relying on patch 11 to restore that exception.
>     
> Sashiko v2 review not addressed 
> ===============================
> 
>   - Kept Guaranteed Performance Buffer-only. The suggestion was to accept a
>     nonzero Integer, but ACPI 6.6 Table 8.23 permits only a Buffer for this
>     entry.
> 
> Deferred follow-up work
> =======================
> 
> Sashiko also identified a broader pre-existing lifetime question which this
> series does not attempt to solve. In-kernel accessors read the per-CPU
> cpc_desc_ptr without acquiring a reference, while processor teardown can
> unpublish and eventually release the descriptor and its PCC data. The kobject
> change here fixes the concrete sysfs lifetime bug, but a NULL pcc_data check
> would not protect a caller which already holds a stale pointer. Closing this
> properly requires defining the kernel accessor lifetime contract and then
> using CPU-hotplug serialization / safe referencing across all callers,
> therefore will be handled by a follow-up.
> 
> ACPI-legal bit-level PCC and SystemIO fields also remain unsupported. In
> particular, the ACPI example's one-bit PCC CPPC Enable register cannot be
> implemented by the old whole-value accessors. Supporting these descriptions
> requires transport-specific field extraction and an RMW operation which obeys
> PCC ownership or safely preserves adjacent SystemIO bits, just accepting the
> descriptors would silently program the wrong value. Therefore continue to
> disable optional inaccessible fields where safe and reject a present
> inaccessible CPPC Enable control.
> Full support, if even needed, belongs in a separate follow-up.
> 
> The review additionally suggested validating the complete AML
> ResourceTemplate, including its EndTag. We currently validate the Register
> descriptor we consume and tolerate trailing firmware data. I don't really
> see the point of ever doing this, but definitely not in this series,
> where I'm trying to guarantee that no reasonably working platform is
> regressing.
> 
> Patches 1, 2, 4-7, and 9 address findings reported by Sashiko while
> reviewing:
> 
>   https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260724134251.1632824-1-christian.loehle%40arm.com
> 
> Patches 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 15 address findings from the follow-up review:
> 
>   https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260807111303.1062391-1-christian.loehle%40arm.com
> 
> Patches 1 and 10 address findings from the v2 review:
> 
>   https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260808082644.1251332-1-christian.loehle%40arm.com
> 
> The series is based on Rafael's bleeding-edge
> 77acf59d7cf1 ("Merge branch 'acpi-cppc' into bleeding-edge")
> the base-commit specified below is linux-next for Sashiko review.
> It applies cleanly on either.
> 
> Christian Loehle (15):
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate the _CPC package header
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate _CPC entry and control semantics
>   ACPI: CPPC: Propagate performance-control write errors
>   ACPI: CPPC: Use 64-bit masks for register fields
>   ACPI: CPPC: Serialize PCC single-register payload updates
>   ACPI: CPPC: Serialize PCC EPP payload updates
>   ACPI: CPPC: Release CPC descriptors through kobject
>   ACPI: CPPC: Release PCC data after probe failures
>   ACPI: CPPC: Reject unsafe cross-CPU SystemMemory RMW
>   ACPI: CPPC: Reject reads and RMW of write-only controls
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate and access PCC register layouts
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate SystemIO register layouts
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate PCC overlaps across processors
>   ACPI: CPPC: Validate SystemIO overlaps across processors
>   ACPI: CPPC: Clear Performance Limited without a stale read
> 
>  drivers/acpi/cppc_acpi.c | 1298 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
>  include/acpi/cppc_acpi.h |    7 +-
>  2 files changed, 1116 insertions(+), 189 deletions(-)
> 
> base-commit: ea2bff00da89d7767d677bb68470130ba96f4928

Looks like Sashiko is happy with this now, so human-reviewers, feel free
to have a go!

Also I'm afraid this won't be the last series, Sashiko found 20 pre-existing
issues again, I haven't looked at all of them in detail but the ones I have
look legitimate to me and some are at least non-trivial to fix.
(Some are also issues fixed by $SUBJECT but reviewed in an earlier patch.)
I didn't see anything super urgent in it though so I might just let things
settle before posting that.