Re: [PATCH v3 01/13] x86/fpu/xstate: Avoid getting xstate address of init_fpstate if fpstate contains the component

[Mingwei Zhang]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2023, Chang S. Bae wrote:
> On 2/24/2023 3:56 PM, Mingwei Zhang wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 22, 2023, Chang S. Bae wrote:
> > > 
> > >          /*
> > > -        * The ptrace buffer is in non-compacted XSAVE format.  In
> > > -        * non-compacted format disabled features still occupy state space,
> > > -        * but there is no state to copy from in the compacted
> > > -        * init_fpstate. The gap tracking will zero these states.
> > > +        * Indicate which states to copy from fpstate. When not present in
> > > +        * fpstate, those extended states are either initialized or
> > > +        * disabled. They are also known to have an all zeros init state.
> > > +        * Thus, remove them from 'mask' to zero those features in the user
> > > +        * buffer instead of retrieving them from init_fpstate.
> > >           */
> > > -       mask = fpstate->user_xfeatures;
> > 
> > Do we need to change this line and the comments? I don't see any of
> > these was relevant to this issue. The original code semantic is to
> > traverse all user_xfeatures, if it is available in fpstate, copy it from
> > there; otherwise, copy it from init_fpstate. We do not assume the
> > component in init_fpstate (but not in fpstate) are all zeros, do we? If
> > it is safe to assume that, then it might be ok. But at least in this
> > patch, I want to keep the original semantics as is without the
> > assumption.
> 
> Here it has [1]:
> 
> 	 *
> 	 * XSAVE could be used, but that would require to reshuffle the
> 	 * data when XSAVEC/S is available because XSAVEC/S uses xstate
> 	 * compaction. But doing so is a pointless exercise because most
> 	 * components have an all zeros init state except for the legacy
> 	 * ones (FP and SSE). Those can be saved with FXSAVE into the
> 	 * legacy area. Adding new features requires to ensure that init
> 	 * state is all zeroes or if not to add the necessary handling
> 	 * here.
> 	 */
> 	fxsave(&init_fpstate.regs.fxsave);

ah, I see.
> 
> Thus, init_fpstate has zeros for those extended states. Then, copying from
> init_fpstate is the same as membuf_zero() by the gap tracking. But, we have
> two ways to do the same thing here.
> 
> So I think it works that simply copying the state from fpstate only for
> those present there, then letting the gap tracking zero out for the rest of
> the userspace buffer for features that are either disabled or initialized.
> 
> Then, we can remove accessing init_fpstate in the copy loop and which is the
> source of the problem. So I think this line change is relevant and also
> makes the code simple.
> 
> I guess I'm fine if you don't want to do this. Then, let me follow up with
> something like this at first. Something like yours could be a fallback
> option for other good reasons, otherwise.

hmm. I see. But this is still because of the software implementation.
What if there is a new hardware component that requires a non-zero init
state.

For instance, in the past, we had PKRU component, whose init value is
0x555...54. Of course, that is a bad example because now we kick it out
of the XSAVE/XRSTOR and special handling that, but there is no guarantee
that in the future we will never need a non-zero init state.

So, I will send out my fix and let you, Thomas and potentially other
folks to decide what is the best option. Overall, I get your point.

Thanks
-Mingwei
>
> Thanks,
> Chang
> 
> [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/kernel/fpu/xstate.c#n386
> 
>