linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/2] lib: Provide generic atomic64

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite for Android: free password hash cracker in your pocket

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20090613205611.GA21498@elte.hu>
Date:	Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:56:11 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>, benh@...nel.crashing.org,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, linuxppc-dev@...abs.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] lib: Provide generic atomic64_t implementation

* Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> > >
> > > Linus, Andrew: OK if this goes in via the powerpc tree?
> > 
> > Ok by me.
> 
> Btw, do 32-bit architectures really necessarily want 64-bit 
> performance counters?
> 
> I realize that 32-bit counters will overflow pretty easily, but I 
> do wonder about the performance impact of doing things like hashed 
> spinlocks for 64-bit counters. Maybe the downsides of 64-bit perf 
> counters on such architectures might outweight the upsides?

We account all sorts of non-hw bits via atomic64_t as well - for 
example time related counters in nanoseconds - which wrap 32 bits at 
4 seconds.

There's also security/stability relevant bits:

        counter->id             = atomic64_inc_return(&perf_counter_id);

We dont really want that ID to wrap ever - it could create a leaking 
of one PMU context into another. (We could rewrite it by putting a 
global lock around it, but still - this is a convenient primitive.)

In select places we might be able to reduce the use of atomic64_t 
(that might make performance sense anyway) - but to get rid of all 
of them would be quite painful. We initially started with a 32-bit 
implementation and it was quite painful with fast-paced units.

So since Paul has already coded the wrappers up ... i'd really 
prefer that, unless there's really compelling reasons not to do it.

	Ingo
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/