Re: [RFC PATCH] powerpc/6xx: Don't set back MSR_RI before reenabling MMU

From: Christophe Leroy
Date: Fri Feb 01 2019 - 06:52:01 EST




Le 01/02/2019 Ã 12:10, Michael Ellerman a ÃcritÂ:
Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@xxxxxx> writes:

By delaying the setting of MSR_RI, a 1% improvment is optained on
null_syscall selftest on an mpc8321.

Without this patch:

root@vgoippro:~# ./null_syscall
1134.33 ns 378.11 cycles

With this patch:

root@vgoippro:~# ./null_syscall
1121.85 ns 373.95 cycles

The drawback is that a machine check during that period
would be unrecoverable, but as only main memory is accessed
during that period, it shouldn't be a concern.

On 64-bit server CPUs accessing main memory can cause a UE
(Uncorrectable Error) which can trigger a machine check.

So it may still be a concern, it depends how paranoid you are.

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_32.S b/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_32.S
index 146385b1c2da..ea28a6ab56ec 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_32.S
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_32.S
@@ -282,8 +282,6 @@ __secondary_hold_acknowledge:
stw r1,GPR1(r11); \
stw r1,0(r11); \
tovirt(r1,r11); /* set new kernel sp */ \
- li r10,MSR_KERNEL & ~(MSR_IR|MSR_DR); /* can take exceptions */ \
- MTMSRD(r10); /* (except for mach check in rtas) */ \
stw r0,GPR0(r11); \
lis r10,STACK_FRAME_REGS_MARKER@ha; /* exception frame marker */ \
addi r10,r10,STACK_FRAME_REGS_MARKER@l; \

Where does RI get enabled? I don't see it anywhere obvious.

MSR_RI is part of MSR_KERNEL, it gets then enabled when reenabling MMU when calling the exception handler.

#define EXC_XFER_TEMPLATE(n, hdlr, trap, copyee, tfer, ret) \
li r10,trap; \
stw r10,_TRAP(r11); \
li r10,MSR_KERNEL; \
copyee(r10, r9); \
bl tfer; \
i##n: \
.long hdlr; \
.long ret

where tfer = transfer_to_handler.

In transfer_to_handler (kernel/entry_32.S) you have:

transfer_to_handler_cont:
3:
mflr r9
lwz r11,0(r9) /* virtual address of handler */
lwz r9,4(r9) /* where to go when done */
[...]
mtspr SPRN_SRR0,r11
mtspr SPRN_SRR1,r10
mtlr r9
SYNC
RFI /* jump to handler, enable MMU */

So MSR_RI is restored above as r10 contains MSR_KERNEL [ | MSR_EE ]

Christophe




cheers