On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 03:36:54AM -0700, Wolfgang Walter wrote:Ok. Thanks. I think I can explain the failure: These padlock instructions though don't use/touch SSE registers, but it behaves similar to other SSE instructions. For example, it might cause DNA faults when cr0.ts is set. While this is a spurious DNA trap, it might cause problems with the recent fpu code changes. This is the code sequence that is probably causing this problem: a) new app is getting exec'd and it is somewhere in between start_thread() and flush_old_exec() in the load_xyz_binary() b) At pont "a", task's fpu state (like TS_USEDFPU, used_math() etc) is cleared. c) Now we get an interrupt/softirq which starts using these encrypt/decrypt routines in the network stack. This generates a math fault (as cr0.ts is '1') which sets TS_USEDFPU and restores the math that is in the task's xstate. d) Return to exec code path, which does start_thread() which does free_thread_xstate() and sets xstate pointer to NULL while the TS_USEDFPU is still set. e) At the next context switch from the new exec'd task to another task, we have a scenarios where TS_USEDFPU is set but xstate pointer is null. This can cause an oops during unlazy_fpu() in __switch_to() Now: 1) This should happen with or with out pre-emption. Viro also encountered similar problem with out CONFIG_PREEMPT. 2) kernel_fpu_begin() and kernel_fpu_end() will fix this problem, because kernel_fpu_begin() will manually do a clts() and won't run in to the situation of setting TS_USEDFPU in step "c" above. 3) This was working before the fpu changes, because its a spurious math fault which doesn't corrupt any fpu/sse registers and the task's math state was always in an allocated state. I propose to go with wolf's patch which add's kernel_fpu_begin() and kernel_fpu_end() around these instructions. This is the correct fix (unless there is something wrong in my above understanding). thanks, suresh -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
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