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-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Date:	Sun, 14 Jul 2013 10:19:20 -0700
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@...il.com>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Eli Friedman <eli.friedman@...il.com>,
	Jim Grosbach <grosbach@...le.com>,
	Stephen Checkoway <s@...tak.org>, LLVMdev <llvmdev@...uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/asm: avoid mnemonics without type suffix

On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 5:56 AM, Ramkumar Ramachandra
<artagnon@...il.com> wrote:
> 1c54d77 (x86: partial unification of asm-x86/bitops.h, 2008-01-30)
> changed a bunch of btrl/btsl instructions to btr/bts, with the following
> justification:
>
>   The inline assembly for the bit operations has been changed to remove
>   explicit sizing hints on the instructions, so the assembler will pick
>   the appropriate instruction forms depending on the architecture and
>   the context.
>
> Unfortunately, GNU as does no such thing

Yes it does.

>   btrl  $1, 0
>   btr   $1, 0
>   btsl  $1, 0
>   bts   $1, 0

What the heck is that supposed to show? It shows nothing at all. With
an argument of '1', *of*course* gas will use "btsl", since that's the
short form. Using the rex-predix and a btsq would be *stupid*.

So gas will pick the appropriate form, exactly as claimed.

Try some actual relevant test instead:

   bt %eax,mem
   bt %rax,mem

and notice how they are actually fundamentally different. Test-case:

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  asm("bt %1,%0":"=m" (**argv): "a" (argc));
  asm("bt %1,%0":"=m" (**argv): "a" ((unsigned long)(argc)));
}

and I get

   0f a3 02             bt     %eax,(%rdx)
   48 0f a3 02           bt     %rax,(%rdx)

exactly as expected and wanted.

Now, there are possible cases where you want to make the size explicit
because you are mixing memory operand sizes and there can be nasty
performance implications of doing a 32-bit write and then doing a
64-bit read of the result. I'm not actually aware of us having ever
worried/cared about it, but it's a possible source of trouble: mixing
bitop instructions with non-bitop instructions can have some subtle
interactions, and you need to be careful, since the size of the
operand affects both the offset *and* the memory access size. The
access size generally is meaningless from a semantic standpoint
(little-endian being the only sane model), but the access size *can*
have performance implications for the write queue forwarding.

                      Linus
--
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/

Powered by blists - more mailing lists