linux-kernel - [PATCH 0/3] Fixing udelay() on SMP (and non-SMP too)

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: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

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

Message-Id: <1282184643-29860-1-git-send-email-sboyd@codeaurora.org>
Date:	Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:24:00 -0700
From:	Stephen Boyd <sboyd@...eaurora.org>
To:	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org
Cc:	linux-arm-msm@...ts.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Russell King <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
	Saravana Kannan <skannan@...eaurora.org>
Subject: [PATCH 0/3] Fixing udelay() on SMP (and non-SMP too)

These patches are another attempt at fixing the udelay()
issue pointed out on arm-lkml[1][2]. A quick recap: some SMP
machines can scale their CPU frequencies independent of one
another. loops_per_jiffy is calibrated globally and used in
__const_udelay(). If one CPU is running faster than what the
loops_per_jiffy is calculated (or scaled) for, udelay() will
be incorrect and not wait long enough (or too long). A similar
problem occurs if the cpu frequency is scaled during a udelay()
call.

We could fix this issue a couple ways, wholesale replacement
of __udelay() and __const_udelay() (see [2] for that approach),
or replacement of __delay() (this series). Option 1 can fail if
anybody uses udelay() before memory is mapped and also duplicates
most of the code in asm/delay.h. It also needs to hardcode the
timer tick frequency, which can sometimes be inaccurate. The
benefit is that loops_per_jiffy stays the same and thus BogoMIPS
is unchanged.  Option 2 can't fail since the __delay() loop is
replaced after memory is mapped in, but it suffers from a low
BogoMIPS when timers are clocked slowly. It also more accurately
calculates the timer tick frequency through the use of
calibrate_delay_direct().

-- Reference --
[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/977567
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ports.arm.kernel/78496 

Stephen Boyd (3):
  [ARM] Translate delay.S into (mostly) C
  [ARM] Allow machines to override __delay()
  [ARM] Implement a timer based __delay() loop

 arch/arm/include/asm/delay.h |    5 ++-
 arch/arm/kernel/armksyms.c   |    4 --
 arch/arm/lib/delay.S         |   65 ------------------------------
 arch/arm/lib/delay.c         |   90 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 94 insertions(+), 70 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 arch/arm/lib/delay.S
 create mode 100644 arch/arm/lib/delay.c

-- 
Sent by an employee of the Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
The Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of the Code Aurora Forum.

--
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/