Re: [RFC/INCOMPLETE 00/13] x86: Rewrite exit-to-userspace code

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 3:11 AM, Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> * Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> > The only low level bits remaining in assembly will be low level hardware ABI
>> > details: saving registers and restoring registers to the expected format - no
>> > 'active' code whatsoever.
>>
>> I think this is true for syscalls.  Getting the weird special cases (IRET and GS
>> fault) for error_entry to work correctly in C could be tricky.
>
> Correct, and I double checked the IRET fault path yesterday (fixup_bad_iret), and
> it looks like a straightforward exception handler with limited control flow. It
> can stay in asm just fine, it seems mostly orthogonal to the rest.
>
> I didn't check the GS fault path, but that only affects 32-bit, as we use SWAPGS
> on 64-bit, right? In any case, that code too (32-bit RESTORE_REGS) belongs into
> the natural 'hardware ABI preparation code' that should stay in assembly. (Unless
> I missed some other code that might cause trouble.)

Look for "gs_change".  To change the gs selector, we do swapgs, then
load gs, then swapgs again.  If the gs load fails, then we trigger a
special fixup.

--Andy
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