Re: [tip:x86/mm] x86/boot/32: Defer resyncing initial_page_table until per-cpu is set up

From: Andy Lutomirski
Date: Mon May 08 2017 - 20:04:22 EST


On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 10:53 AM, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 2017-05-08 14:34, Jan Kiszka wrote:
>> On 2017-05-08 13:21, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 2:32 AM, Andy Shevchenko
>>> <andy.shevchenko@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 9:31 AM, Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> On 2017-03-23 10:14, tip-bot for Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>>>>> The x86 smpboot trampoline expects initial_page_table to have the
>>>>>> GDT mapped. If the GDT ends up in a virtually mapped per-cpu page,
>>>>>> then it won't be in the page tables at all until perc-pu areas are
>>>>>> set up. The result will be a triple fault the first time that the
>>>>>> CPU attempts to access the GDT after LGDT loads the perc-pu GDT.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This appears to be an old bug, but somehow the GDT fixmap rework
>>>>>> is triggering it. This seems to have something to do with the
>>>>>> memory layout.
>>>>
>>>>> This breaks the boot on our Intel Quark platform (IOT2000, similar to
>>>>> Galileo Gen2). Reverting it over master makes it work again. Any idea
>>>>> what goes wrong? Let me know how I can help debugging this.
>>>>
>>>> JFYI: As of today linux-next when _kexec:ed_ works fine to me
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps I can test this later with direct boot from SD card.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The most likely explanation is that there's some code that needs the
>>> page table synced and runs before setup_per_cpu_areas(). The relevant
>>> init code is:
>>>
>>> setup_arch(&command_line);
>>> mm_init_cpumask(&init_mm);
>>> setup_command_line(command_line);
>>> setup_nr_cpu_ids();
>>> setup_per_cpu_areas();
>>>
>>> so I didn't move it very far. It would be awesome if we could get a
>>> backtrace when the failure happens, but it's likely to be a triple
>>> fault. Is this an EFI boot? I bet the failure is in efi_init().
>>
>> Yes, it's an EFI thing. Unfortunately, I didn't make
>> earlycon/earlyprintk work yet.
>>
>>>
>>> Could you try reverting just the deletions in the patch? I.e. try a
>>> kernel with both the old and the new copies of the code I moved.
>>
>> Let me try that later. I can also move the new code around to nail down
>> the dependency.
>>
>
> I found the reason: your patch is very discriminating! Not the whole
> world is multicore yet. ;)
>
> setup_per_cpu_areas() is taken from mm/percpu.c in case of !CONFIG_SMP.
> So the new home for the resync is not even built.

D'oh!

>
> Any suggestions how to refactor things instead?

efi_init() seems okay, but it makes me nervous. I think the partial
revert is the right fix. Patch coming.

>
> Jan
>
> --
> Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, CT RDA ITP SES-DE
> Corporate Competence Center Embedded Linux