Re: [patch] x86, mm: avoid stale tlb entries by clearing prevmm_cpumask after switching mm

[Suresh Siddha]

On Wed, 2011-02-02 at 17:23 -0800, Andi Kleen wrote:
> Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> > For the prev mm that is handing over the cpu to another mm, clear the cpu
> > from the mm_cpumask(prev) after the cr3 is changed.
> >
> > Otherwise, clearing the mm_cpumask early will avoid the flush tlb IPI's while
> > the cr3 and TLB's are still pointing to the prev mm. And this window can lead
> > to the stale (global) TLB entries.
> >
> > Marking it for -stable, though we haven't seen any reported failure that
> > can be attributed to this.
> 
> Would it be safer to add a memory barrier between the load_cr3 and the
> cpumask_clear_cpu()? As far as I can see cpumask_clear_cpu doesn't
> imply a general one and load_cr3 doesn't either. There's this
> __force_order hack in system.h, but I don't think it will enforce
> order here.

I thought "asm volatile" is going to take care of that.

If not, then we have issues even today. no?

thanks,
suresh

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