Re: [PATCH 15/24] x86/mm: Allow flushing for future ASID switches

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Thu Nov 30 2017 - 11:19:01 EST


On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 07:51:17AM -0800, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 11/30/2017 07:44 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 11:49:14AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >> @@ -338,24 +366,23 @@ static inline void __native_flush_tlb_single(unsigned long addr)
> >>
> >> static inline void __flush_tlb_all(void)
> >> {
> >> + if (boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_PGE)) {
> >> __flush_tlb_global();
> >> + } else {
> >> __flush_tlb();
> >> + tlb_flush_shared_nonglobals();
> > I do however think this one is superfluous; if we do not have PGE we
> > also do not have PCID and every CR3 switch flushes everything.
>
> I tried to sprinkle these around at all the sites that did non-global
> kernel flushes. In the case that it's superfluous !KAISER, it's a noop
> anyway. In the (currently unsupported) case that we *do* need it, well,
> we need it.

I'm confused. When would we need it there?