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] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <87a56croin.wl-tiwai@suse.de>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:15:12 +0200
From: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>
To: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@...roup.eu>
Cc: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
	Jaroslav Kysela <perex@...ex.cz>,
	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org,
	linux-sound@...r.kernel.org,
	Herve Codina <herve.codina@...tlin.com>,
	Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ALSA: pcm: Convert snd_pcm_ioctl_sync_ptr_{compat/x32} to user_access_begin/user_access_end()

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 07:24:46 +0200,
Christophe Leroy wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Le 12/06/2025 à 13:02, Takashi Iwai a écrit :
> > On Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:39:39 +0200,
> > Christophe Leroy wrote:
> >> 
> >> With user access protection (Called SMAP on x86 or KUAP on powerpc)
> >> each and every call to get_user() or put_user() performs heavy
> >> operations to unlock and lock kernel access to userspace.
> >> 
> >> SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_SYNC_PTR ioctl is a hot path that needs to be
> >> optimised. To do that, perform user accesses by blocks using
> >> user_access_begin/user_access_end() and unsafe_get_user()/
> >> unsafe_put_user() and alike.
> >> 
> >> Before the patch the 9 calls to put_user() at the
> >> end of snd_pcm_ioctl_sync_ptr_compat() imply the following set of
> >> instructions about 9 times (access_ok - enable user - write - disable
> >> user):
> >>      0.00 :   c057f858:       3d 20 7f ff     lis     r9,32767
> >>      0.29 :   c057f85c:       39 5e 00 14     addi    r10,r30,20
> >>      0.77 :   c057f860:       61 29 ff fc     ori     r9,r9,65532
> >>      0.32 :   c057f864:       7c 0a 48 40     cmplw   r10,r9
> >>      0.36 :   c057f868:       41 a1 fb 58     bgt     c057f3c0 <snd_pcm_ioctl+0xbb0>
> >>      0.30 :   c057f86c:       3d 20 dc 00     lis     r9,-9216
> >>      1.95 :   c057f870:       7d 3a c3 a6     mtspr   794,r9
> >>      0.33 :   c057f874:       92 8a 00 00     stw     r20,0(r10)
> >>      0.27 :   c057f878:       3d 20 de 00     lis     r9,-8704
> >>      0.28 :   c057f87c:       7d 3a c3 a6     mtspr   794,r9
> >> ...
> >> 
> >> A perf profile shows that in total the 9 put_user() represent 36% of
> >> the time spent in snd_pcm_ioctl() and about 80 instructions.
> >> 
> >> With this patch everything is done in 13 instructions and represent
> >> only 15% of the time spent in snd_pcm_ioctl():
> >> 
> >>      0.57 :   c057f5dc:       3d 20 dc 00     lis     r9,-9216
> >>      0.98 :   c057f5e0:       7d 3a c3 a6     mtspr   794,r9
> >>      0.16 :   c057f5e4:       92 7f 00 04     stw     r19,4(r31)
> >>      0.63 :   c057f5e8:       93 df 00 0c     stw     r30,12(r31)
> >>      0.16 :   c057f5ec:       93 9f 00 10     stw     r28,16(r31)
> >>      4.95 :   c057f5f0:       92 9f 00 14     stw     r20,20(r31)
> >>      0.19 :   c057f5f4:       92 5f 00 18     stw     r18,24(r31)
> >>      0.49 :   c057f5f8:       92 bf 00 1c     stw     r21,28(r31)
> >>      0.27 :   c057f5fc:       93 7f 00 20     stw     r27,32(r31)
> >>      5.88 :   c057f600:       93 36 00 00     stw     r25,0(r22)
> >>      0.11 :   c057f604:       93 17 00 00     stw     r24,0(r23)
> >>      0.00 :   c057f608:       3d 20 de 00     lis     r9,-8704
> >>      0.79 :   c057f60c:       7d 3a c3 a6     mtspr   794,r9
> >> 
> >> Note that here the access_ok() in user_write_access_begin() is skipped
> >> because the exact same verification has already been performed at the
> >> beginning of the fonction with the call to user_read_access_begin().
> >> 
> >> Signed-off-by: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@...roup.eu>
> >> ---
> >> This is a lighter version of previous patch "[PATCH v2] ALSA: pcm: Convert multiple {get/put}_user to user_access_begin/user_access_end()" focussing on identified hot path.
> >> Moved and nested the failure labels closer in order to increase readability
> > 
> > Thanks for the revised patch!
> > 
> > Although it's now much lighter, I still believe that we can reduce
> > get_user() / put_user() calls significantly by adjusting the struct
> > usage.
> > 
> > Could you check whether the patch below can improve?
> > (Zero-ing of sstatus can be an overhead here, but there are some
> > holes, and these need to be initialized before copying back...)
> > 
> 
> Thanks for the proposed patch. Unfortunately it doesn't improve the
> situation. The problem with copy_from_user() and copy_to_user() is
> that they perform quite bad on small regions. And for the from_user
> side we still get two user access enable/disable instead 3 and for the
> to_user side we still get two as well (Allthough we had 7
> previously). Those 4 user access enable/disable still have a cost.
> 
> Nowadays the tendency is really to go for the unsafe_put/get_user
> style, see some significant exemples below. And as mentioned in those
> commits, behind the performance improvement it also lead to much
> cleaner code generation.
> - 38ebcf5096a8 ("scm: optimize put_cmsg()")
> - 9f79b78ef744 ("Convert filldir[64]() from __put_user() to
> unsafe_put_user()")
> - ef0ba0553829 ("poll: fix performance regression due to out-of-line
> __put_user()")
> 
> Commit 38ebcf5096a8 is explicit about copy_to_user() being bad for
> small regions.
> 
> Here below is some comparison between the three way of doing
> snd_pcm_ioctl_sync_ptr_compat(), output is from 'perf top':
> 
> Initially I got the following. That 12%+ is the reason why I started
> investigating.
> 
>     14.20%  test_perf           [.] engine_main
> ==> 12.86%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_ioctl
>     11.91%  [kernel]            [k] finish_task_switch.isra.0
>      4.15%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_group_unlock_irq.part.0
>      4.07%  libc.so.6           [.] __ioctl_time64
>      3.58%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin_generic
>      3.37%  [kernel]            [k] sys_ioctl
>      2.96%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_hw_avail_update
>      2.73%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin
>      2.58%  [kernel]            [k] system_call_exception
>      1.93%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] sync_ptr1
>      1.85%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_unlock
>      1.84%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_mmap_begin
>      1.83%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] bad_pcm_state
>      1.68%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_mmap_avail
>      1.67%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_avail_update
> 
> With _your_ patch I get the following. copy_from_user() calls
> _copy_from_user() and copy_to_user() calls _copy_to_user(). Both then
> call __copy_tofrom_user(). In total it is 16.4% so it is worse than
> before.
> 
>     14.47%  test_perf           [.] engine_main
>     12.00%  [kernel]            [k] finish_task_switch.isra.0
> ==>  8.37%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_ioctl
>      5.44%  libc.so.6           [.] __ioctl_time64
>      5.03%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_group_unlock_irq.part.0
> ==>  4.86%  [kernel]            [k] __copy_tofrom_user
>      4.62%  [kernel]            [k] sys_ioctl
>      3.22%  [kernel]            [k] system_call_exception
>      2.42%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_mmap_begin
>      2.31%  [kernel]            [k] fdget
>      2.23%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin_generic
>      2.19%  [kernel]            [k] syscall_exit_prepare
>      1.92%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_mmap_avail
>      1.86%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin
>      1.68%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_hw_avail_update
> ==>  1.67%  [kernel]            [k] _copy_from_user
>      1.66%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] bad_pcm_state
> ==>  1.53%  [kernel]            [k] _copy_to_user
>      1.40%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] sync_ptr1
> 
> With my patch I get the following:
> 
>     17.46%  test_perf           [.] engine_main
>      9.14%  [kernel]            [k] finish_task_switch.isra.0
> ==>  4.92%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_ioctl
>      3.99%  [kernel]            [k] snd_pcm_group_unlock_irq.part.0
>      3.71%  libc.so.6           [.] __ioctl_time64
>      3.61%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin_generic
>      2.72%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] sync_ptr1
>      2.65%  [kernel]            [k] system_call_exception
>      2.46%  [kernel]            [k] sys_ioctl
>      2.43%  [kernel]            [k] __rseq_handle_notify_resume
>      2.34%  [kernel]            [k] do_epoll_wait
>      2.30%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_commit
>      2.14%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_avail
>      2.04%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_hw_avail_update
>      1.89%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_lock
>      1.84%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] snd_pcm_mmap_avail
>      1.76%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_avail_update
>      1.61%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] bad_pcm_state
>      1.60%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] __snd_pcm_mmap_begin
>      1.49%  libasound.so.2.0.0  [.] query_status_data

Thanks for the detailed analysis!  Then unsafe_*_user() seems to be
the way to go.  I'll check your latest patches.


Takashi

Powered by blists - more mailing lists

Powered by Openwall GNU/*/Linux Powered by OpenVZ