linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Make math_state_restore() save and restore the interrupt flag

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Date:	Sun, 2 Feb 2014 09:45:13 +0100 (CET)
From:	Pekka Riikonen <priikone@....fi>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
cc:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Suresh Siddha <sbsiddha@...il.com>,
	Nate Eldredge <nate@...tsmathematics.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
	stable <stable@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Maarten Baert <maarten-baert@...mail.com>,
	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>, George Spelvin <linux@...izon.com>,
	Pekka Riikonen <priikone@....fi>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make math_state_restore() save and restore the interrupt
 flag

On Sat, 1 Feb 2014, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> We could do that with the whole "task_work" thing (or perhaps just
> do_notify_resume(), especially after merging the "don't necessarily
> return with iret" patch I sent out earlier), with additionally making
> sure that scheduling does the right thing wrt a "currently dirty math
> state due to kernel use".
>
> The advantage of that would be that we really could do a *lot* of FP
> math very cheaply in the kernel, because we'd pay the overhead of
> kernel_fpu_begin/end() just once (well, the "end" part would be just
> setting the bit that we now have dirty state, the cost would be in the
> return-to-user-space-and-restore-fp-state part).
>
> Comments? That would be much more invasive than just changing
> __kernel_fpu_end(), but would bring in possibly quite noticeable
> advantages under loads that use the FP/vector resources in the kernel.
>
This would be very good and it needs to work in interrupt context 
(softirq) also, and when we interrupt idle task.  It's with networking we 
can really hit kernel_fpu_begin()/end() millions of times per second and 
there's really only need to do it once per interrupt.  This is actually 
similar what I was doing (in do_softirq)) when I noticed eagerfpu was 
broken and now Nate's bug AFAICS happens there as well.

 	Pekka
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