From: Aman Priyadarshi <amanp@apple.com>
To: catalin.marinas@arm.com, will@kernel.org
Cc: Jason@zx2c4.com, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Aman Priyadarshi <amanp@apple.com>,
Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH] arm64: archrandom: avoid trapping ID register read in __cpu_has_rng()
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:06:15 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260720140615.99343-1-amanp@apple.com> (raw)
__cpu_has_rng() has an early-boot fallback, taken before the
ARM64_HAS_RNG alternative is patched, that calls
this_cpu_has_cap(ARM64_HAS_RNG). With SCOPE_LOCAL_CPU that resolves the
capability by reading ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1 directly from hardware via
__read_sysreg_by_encoding(), on every invocation.
Until the CRNG is seeded, crng_make_state() routes every get_random_*()
through extract_entropy(), which drains architectural entropy via
arch_get_random_seed_longs()/arch_get_random_longs() and so calls
__cpu_has_rng() several times per request. On a direct (non-EFI) boot
there is no bootloader seed, so the CRNG stays unseeded for much of
boot and essentially every early randomness consumer takes this path.
Under virtualization this is costly: the hypervisor traps guest
accesses to the ID registers (HCR_EL2.TID3), making each read a vmexit,
producing ~200k trapped ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1 reads during boot.
The register value is invariant, so read the sanitised feature register
instead. read_sanitised_ftr_reg() returns the cached value from
arm64_ftr_regs[] with no sysreg access, and hence no trap. That array
is populated by cpuinfo_store_boot_cpu() in smp_prepare_boot_cpu(),
before the first early RNG use in random_init_early(), so it is always
valid here.
With this change the trapped reads drop from ~200k to handful number of
times, and the boot time drops roughly by 6.3% in the test environment.
Fixes: 2c03e16f4499 ("random: remove early archrandom abstraction")
Cc: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@zx2c4.com>
Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Aman Priyadarshi <amanp@apple.com>
---
arch/arm64/include/asm/archrandom.h | 18 ++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/archrandom.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/archrandom.h
index 8babfbe31f95..8067e9a35641 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/archrandom.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/archrandom.h
@@ -61,8 +61,22 @@ static inline bool __arm64_rndrrs(unsigned long *v)
static __always_inline bool __cpu_has_rng(void)
{
- if (unlikely(!system_capabilities_finalized() && !preemptible()))
- return this_cpu_has_cap(ARM64_HAS_RNG);
+ if (unlikely(!system_capabilities_finalized() && !preemptible())) {
+ /*
+ * Until the ARM64_HAS_RNG alternative is patched we can't use
+ * the static-branch form, so consult the feature register
+ * directly. Don't use this_cpu_has_cap() here: it reads
+ * ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1 from hardware on every call, under
+ * virtualization each ID register read traps to the hypervisor
+ * (HCR_EL2.TID3) -- producing a storm of vmexits during boot.
+ * The sanitised value is cached in memory.
+ */
+ u64 isar0 = read_sanitised_ftr_reg(SYS_ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1);
+
+ return cpuid_feature_extract_unsigned_field(isar0,
+ ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1_RNDR_SHIFT) >=
+ ID_AA64ISAR0_EL1_RNDR_IMP;
+ }
return alternative_has_cap_unlikely(ARM64_HAS_RNG);
}
--
2.54.0 (Apple Git-156)
reply other threads:[~2026-07-20 14:09 UTC|newest]
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