[PATCH 6.1 169/232] MIPS: Work around LLVM bug when gp is used as global register variable

Sasha Levin
2026-02-28T18:13:52Z

From: Yao Zi <me@ziyao.cc>

commit 30bfc2d6a1132a89a5f1c3b96c59cf3e4d076ea3 upstream.

On MIPS, __current_thread_info is defined as global register variable
locating in $gp, and is simply assigned with new address during kernel
relocation.

This however is broken with LLVM, which always restores $gp if it finds
$gp is clobbered in any form, including when intentionally through a
global register variable. This is against GCC's documentation[1], which
requires a callee-saved register used as global register variable not to
be restored if it's clobbered.

As a result, $gp will continue to point to the unrelocated kernel after
the epilog of relocate_kernel(), leading to an early crash in init_idle,

[ 0.000000] CPU 0 Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 0000000000000000, epc == ffffffff81afada8, ra == ffffffff81afad90
[ 0.000000] Oops[#1]:
[ 0.000000] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Tainted: G W 6.19.0-rc5-00262-gd3eeb99bbc99-dirty #188 VOLUNTARY
[ 0.000000] Tainted: [W]=WARN
[ 0.000000] Hardware name: loongson,loongson64v-4core-virtio
[ 0.000000] $ 0 : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000001 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] $ 4 : ffffffff80b80ec0 ffffffff80b53d48 0000000000000000 00000000000f4240
[ 0.000000] $ 8 : 0000000000000100 ffffffff81d82f80 ffffffff81d82f80 0000000000000001
[ 0.000000] $12 : 0000000000000000 ffffffff81776f58 00000000000005da 0000000000000002
[ 0.000000] $16 : ffffffff80b80e40 0000000000000000 ffffffff80b81614 9800000005dfbe80
[ 0.000000] $20 : 00000000540000e0 ffffffff81980000 0000000000000000 ffffffff80f81c80
[ 0.000000] $24 : 0000000000000a26 ffffffff8114fb90
[ 0.000000] $28 : ffffffff80b50000 ffffffff80b53d40 0000000000000000 ffffffff81afad90
[ 0.000000] Hi : 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] Lo : 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] epc : ffffffff81afada8 init_idle+0x130/0x270
[ 0.000000] ra : ffffffff81afad90 init_idle+0x118/0x270
[ 0.000000] Status: 540000e2 KX SX UX KERNEL EXL
[ 0.000000] Cause : 00000008 (ExcCode 02)
[ 0.000000] BadVA : 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] PrId : 00006305 (ICT Loongson-3)
[ 0.000000] Process swapper (pid: 0, threadinfo=(____ptrval____), task=(____ptrval____), tls=0000000000000000)
[ 0.000000] Stack : 9800000005dfbf00 ffffffff8178e950 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000000 ffffffff81970000 000000000000003f ffffffff810a6528
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000001 9800000005dfbe80 9800000005dfbf00 ffffffff81980000
[ 0.000000] ffffffff810a6450 ffffffff81afb6c0 0000000000000000 ffffffff810a2258
[ 0.000000] ffffffff81d82ec8 ffffffff8198d010 ffffffff81b67e80 ffffffff8197dd98
[ 0.000000] ffffffff81d81c80 ffffffff81930000 0000000000000040 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000000 000000000000009e ffffffff9fc01000 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[ 0.000000] 0000000000000000 ffffffff81ae86dc ffffffff81b3c741 0000000000000002
[ 0.000000] ...
[ 0.000000] Call Trace:
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff81afada8>] init_idle+0x130/0x270
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff81afb6c0>] sched_init+0x5c8/0x6c0
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff81ae86dc>] start_kernel+0x27c/0x7a8

This bug has been reported to LLVM[2] and affects version from (at
least) 18 to 21. Let's work around this by using inline assembly to
assign $gp before a fix is widely available.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-15.2.0/gcc/Global-Register-Variables.html # [1]
Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/176546 # [2]
Signed-off-by: Yao Zi <me@ziyao.cc>
Acked-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
arch/mips/kernel/relocate.c | 13 +++++++++++++
1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/relocate.c b/arch/mips/kernel/relocate.c
index 58fc8d089402b..dcc2763b39d6e 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/relocate.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/relocate.c
@@ -420,7 +420,20 @@ void *__init relocate_kernel(void)
goto out;

/* The current thread is now within the relocated image */
+#ifndef CONFIG_CC_IS_CLANG
__current_thread_info = RELOCATED(&init_thread_union);
+#else
+ /*
+ * LLVM may wrongly restore $gp ($28) in epilog even if it's
+ * intentionally modified. Work around this by using inline
+ * assembly to assign $gp. $gp couldn't be listed as output or
+ * clobber, or LLVM will still restore its original value.
+ * See also LLVM upstream issue
+ * https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/176546
+ */
+ asm volatile("move $28, %0" : :
+ "r" (RELOCATED(&init_thread_union)));
+#endif

/* Return the new kernel's entry point */
kernel_entry = RELOCATED(start_kernel);
--
2.51.0