linux-kernel - Re: framebuffer corruption due to overlapping stp instructions on arm64

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Message-ID: <alpine.LRH.2.02.1808061306490.12989@file01.intranet.prod.int.rdu2.redhat.com>
Date:   Mon, 6 Aug 2018 13:09:18 -0400 (EDT)
From:   Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@...hat.com>
To:     Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>
cc:     Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>,
        Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@...e-electrons.com>,
        Joao Pinto <Joao.Pinto@...opsys.com>,
        linux-pci <linux-pci@...r.kernel.org>,
        Jingoo Han <jingoohan1@...il.com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Russell King <linux@...linux.org.uk>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Matt Sealey <neko@...uhatsu.net>,
        Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        linux-arm-kernel <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>
Subject: Re: framebuffer corruption due to overlapping stp instructions on
 arm64



On Mon, 6 Aug 2018, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:

> On 6 August 2018 at 14:42, Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com> wrote:
> > On 06/08/18 11:25, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> > [...]
> >>>
> >>> None of this explains why some transactions fail to make it across
> >>> entirely. The overlapping writes in question write the same data to
> >>> the memory locations that are covered by both, and so the ordering in
> >>> which the transactions are received should not affect the outcome.
> >>
> >>
> >> You're right that the corruption couldn't be explained just by reordering
> >> writes. My hypothesis is that the PCIe controller tries to disambiguate
> >> the overlapping writes, but the disambiguation logic was not tested and it
> >> is buggy. If there's a barrier between the overlapping writes, the PCIe
> >> controller won't see any overlapping writes, so it won't trigger the
> >> faulty disambiguation logic and it works.
> >>
> >> Could the ARM engineers look if there's some chicken bit in Cortex-A72
> >> that could insert barriers between non-cached writes automatically?
> >
> >
> > I don't think there is, and even if there was I imagine it would have a
> > pretty hideous effect on non-coherent DMA buffers and the various other
> > places in which we have Normal-NC mappings of actual system RAM.
> >
> 
> Looking at the A72 manual, there is one chicken bit that looks like it
> may be related:
> 
> CPUACTLR_EL1 bit #50:
> 
> 0 Enables store streaming on NC/GRE memory type. This is the reset value.
> 1 Disables store streaming on NC/GRE memory type.
> 
> so putting something like
> 
> mrs x0, S3_1_C15_C2_0
> orr x0, x0, #(1 << 50)
> msr S3_1_C15_C2_0, x0
> 
> in __cpu_setup() would be worth a try.

It won't boot.

But if i write the same value that was read, it also won't boot.

I created a simple kernel module that reads this register and it has bit 
32 set, all other bits clear. But when I write the same value into it, the 
core that does the write is stuck in infinite loop.

So, it seems that we are writing this register from a wrong place.

Mikulas