Re: [PATCH] x86, fpu: correct XSAVE xstate size calculation

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>]

* Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> wrote:

> 
> * Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Aug 6, 2015 10:15 AM, "Ingo Molnar" <mingo@kernel.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > What sense does it make to have a blob we don't know the exact layout of? How 
> > > will debuggers or user-space in general be able to print (and change) the 
> > > register values if they don't know the layout?
> > 
> > The usage model is that you only use this for saving and restoring state.
> > 
> > If you look at the state, you restore the state and then you look at the 
> > registers. You never look at the blob itself.
> 
> So we are relying on the saved structure already in a couple of cases, such as MPX 
> exception handling:
> 
>         /*
>          * We need to look at BNDSTATUS to resolve this exception.
>          * A NULL here might mean that it is in its 'init state',
>          * which is all zeros which indicates MPX was not
>          * responsible for the exception.
>          */
>         bndcsr = get_xsave_field_ptr(XSTATE_BNDCSR);
>         if (!bndcsr)
>                 goto exit_trap;
> 
>         trace_bounds_exception_mpx(bndcsr);
> 
> get_xsave_field_ptr() very much knows about the structure.

Correction:

  get_xsave_field_ptr() users very much know about the structure.

Thanks,

	Ingo