linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH net-next] vhost: use "checked" versions of get_user() and put

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Message-ID: <121ABD73-9400-4657-997C-6AEA578864C5@nutanix.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2025 19:45:28 +0000
From: Jon Kohler <jon@...anix.com>
To: Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>
CC: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        Eugenio Pérez
	<eperezma@...hat.com>,
        "kvm@...r.kernel.org" <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
        "virtualization@...ts.linux.dev" <virtualization@...ts.linux.dev>,
        "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linus Torvalds
	<torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Sean
 Christopherson <seanjc@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] vhost: use "checked" versions of get_user() and
 put_user()



> On Nov 19, 2025, at 8:57 PM, Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 1:35 AM Jon Kohler <jon@...anix.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Nov 16, 2025, at 11:32 PM, Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 10:53 PM Jon Kohler <jon@...anix.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Nov 12, 2025, at 8:09 PM, Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 8:14 AM Jon Kohler <jon@...anix.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> vhost_get_user and vhost_put_user leverage __get_user and __put_user,
>>>>>> respectively, which were both added in 2016 by commit 6b1e6cc7855b
>>>>>> ("vhost: new device IOTLB API").
>>>>> 
>>>>> It has been used even before this commit.
>>>> 
>>>> Ah, thanks for the pointer. I’d have to go dig to find its genesis, but
>>>> its more to say, this existed prior to the LFENCE commit.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> In a heavy UDP transmit workload on a
>>>>>> vhost-net backed tap device, these functions showed up as ~11.6% of
>>>>>> samples in a flamegraph of the underlying vhost worker thread.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Quoting Linus from [1]:
>>>>>>  Anyway, every single __get_user() call I looked at looked like
>>>>>>  historical garbage. [...] End result: I get the feeling that we
>>>>>>  should just do a global search-and-replace of the __get_user/
>>>>>>  __put_user users, replace them with plain get_user/put_user instead,
>>>>>>  and then fix up any fallout (eg the coco code).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Switch to plain get_user/put_user in vhost, which results in a slight
>>>>>> throughput speedup. get_user now about ~8.4% of samples in flamegraph.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Basic iperf3 test on a Intel 5416S CPU with Ubuntu 25.10 guest:
>>>>>> TX: taskset -c 2 iperf3 -c <rx_ip> -t 60 -p 5200 -b 0 -u -i 5
>>>>>> RX: taskset -c 2 iperf3 -s -p 5200 -D
>>>>>> Before: 6.08 Gbits/sec
>>>>>> After:  6.32 Gbits/sec
>>>>> 
>>>>> I wonder if we need to test on archs like ARM.
>>>> 
>>>> Are you thinking from a performance perspective? Or a correctness one?
>>> 
>>> Performance, I think the patch is correct.
>>> 
>>> Thanks
>>> 
>> 
>> Ok gotcha. If anyone has an ARM system stuffed in their
>> front pocket and can give this a poke, I’d appreciate it, as
>> I don’t have ready access to one personally.
>> 
>> That said, I think this might end up in “well, it is what it is”
>> territory as Linus was alluding to, i.e. if performance dips on
>> ARM for vhost, then thats a compelling point to optimize whatever
>> ends up being the culprit for get/put user?
>> 
>> Said another way, would ARM perf testing (or any other arch) be a
>> blocker to taking this change?
> 
> Not a must but at least we need to explain the implication for other
> archs as the discussion you quoted are all for x86.
> 
> Thanks

I’ll admit my ARM muscle is weak, but here’s my best take on this: 

Looking at arch/arm/include/asm/uaccess.h, the biggest thing that I
noticed is the CONFIG_CPU_SPECTRE ifdef, which already remaps
__get_user() to get_user(), so anyone running that in their kconfig
will already practically have the behavior implemented by this patch
by way of commit b1cd0a148063 ("ARM: spectre-v1: use get_user() for
__get_user()”).

Same deal goes for __put_user() vs put_user by way of commit
e3aa6243434f ("ARM: 8795/1: spectre-v1.1: use put_user() for __put_user()”)

Looking at arch/arm/mm/Kconfig, there are a variety of scenarios
where CONFIG_CPU_SPECTRE will be enabled automagically. Looking at 
commit 252309adc81f ("ARM: Make CONFIG_CPU_V7 valid for 32bit ARMv8 implementations")
it says that "ARMv8 is a superset of ARMv7", so I’d guess that just
about everything ARM would include this by default? 

If so, that mean at least for a non-zero population of ARM’ers,
they wouldn’t notice anything from this patch, yea?

Happy to learn otherwise if that read is incorrect! 

Thanks all,
Jon