Re: [PATCH 4/6] s390: add system call to run tasks with modified branch prediction

Heiko Carstens
2018-01-17T13:25:49Z

On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 12:55:06PM +0100, Martin Schwidefsky wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 12:14:52 +0100
> Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@de.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> > On 01/17/2018 11:03 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > > On 01/17/2018 10:48 AM, Martin Schwidefsky wrote:
> > >>          rc = syscall(__NR_s390_modify_bp);
> > >>          if (rc) {
> > >>                  perror("s390_modify_bp");
> > >>                  exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
> > >>          }
> > >
> > > Isn't this traditionally done through personality or prctl?
> >
> > I think we want this per thread (and not per process). So I assume personality
> > will not work out. Can a prctl be done per thread?
>
> The prctl interface seems to be usable to set a per-thread control
> as well. But there is no architecture specific prctl as far as I
> can see. Maybe a common PR_SET_NOBP with an arch function like
> arch_set_nobp.

There is for example PR_MPX_ENABLE_MANAGEMENT, which is x86 specific. On
the other hand x86 even has an arch_prctl() system call... ;)