Re: [RFC] [PATCH] cache pollution aware __copy_from_user_ll()

[Chuck Ebbert]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 at 13:50:22 +0900 (JST), Hiro Yoshioka wrote:

> 3) page faults/exceptions/...
> 3-1  TS flag is set by the CPU (Am I right?)

  TS will _not_ be set if a trap/fault or interrupt occurs.  The only
way that could happen automatically would be to use a separate hardware
task with its own TSS to handle those.

  And since the kernel does not have any state information of its own
(no task_struct) any attempt to save the kernel-mode FPU state would
overwrite the current user-mode state anyway.

  Interrupt and fault handlers will not use FP instructions anyway.
The only thing you have to worry about is getting scheduled away
while your code is running, and I guess that's why you have to worry
about page faults.  And as Arjan pointed out, if you are doing
__copy_from_user_inatomic you cannot sleep (==switch to another task.)

  So I would try the code from include/asm-i386/xor.h, modify it to
save as many registers as you plan to use and see what happens.  It will
do all the right things. See the xor_sse_2() for how to save and restore
properly -- you will need to put your xmm_save area on the stack.
 
__
Chuck
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