Re: [PATCH v3] powerpc32: memcpy: only use dcbz once cache is enabled

From: christophe leroy
Date: Sat Sep 12 2015 - 04:07:43 EST



Le 11/09/2015 23:35, Scott Wood a Ãcrit :
On Fri, 2015-09-11 at 16:33 +0200, Christophe Leroy wrote:
memcpy() uses instruction dcbz to speed up copy by not wasting time
loading cache line with data that will be overwritten.
Some platform like mpc52xx do no have cache active at startup and
can therefore not use memcpy(). Allthough no part of the code
explicitly uses memcpy(), GCC makes calls to it.

This patch modifies memcpy() such that at startup, memcpy()
unconditionally jumps to generic_memcpy() which doesn't use
the dcbz instruction.

Once the initial MMU is set up, in machine_init() we patch memcpy()
by replacing this inconditional jump by a NOP

Reported-by: Michal Sojka <sojkam1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@xxxxxx>
---
changes in v2:
Using feature-fixups instead of hardcoded call to patch_instruction()
Handling of memset() added
changes in v3:
Not using anymore feature-fixups
Handling of memset() removed
Why was handling of memset() removed?



Initially, the issue was reported for memcpy() only. v1 was only handling memcpy()
When it came to using fixups with v2, it took the opportunity to also handle memset() just in case, as it was quite simple.
Now with v3, we are back to using simple solution with patch_instruction() as recommended by Michael, having to point to the instruction to be replaced by a NOP.
For memcpy() it is quite easy, we just put a jump to generic_memcpy() as first instruction of memcpy().
For memset() we don't have a generic_memset() to jump to in the begining of memset(). We have to skip the handling of complete cache lines (block starting with "clrlwi r7,r6,32-LG_CACHELINE_BYTES"). This means we have to add a global symbol for that to use with patch_instruction()

memset() doesn't seem to be an issue for the time being. Should we do it anyway ?

Christophe

---
L'absence de virus dans ce courrier Ãlectronique a Ãtà vÃrifiÃe par le logiciel antivirus Avast.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

--
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/