Re: [PATCH 0/3] minor cleanups to EFLAGS initialisation in ret_from_fork

Peter Zijlstra
2011-07-26T14:47:06Z

On Tue, 2011-07-26 at 01:47 +0400, Cyrill Gorcunov wrote:
> > > schedule (sched.c)
> > > ...
> > > raw_spin_lock_irq
> > > ...
> > > context_switch
> > > switch_to
> > > "jnz ret_from_fork\n\t"
> > > pushq_cfi kernel_eflags(%rip)
> > > popfq_cfi # reset kernel eflags
> > >
> > > ---> irqs are still disabled
> > >
> > > call schedule_tail # rdi: 'prev' task parameter
> > > finish_lock_switch
> > > raw_spin_unlock_irq
> > >
> > > I bet raw_spin_lock_irq at the beginning of the schedule() is set
> > > for a reason and such change is not safe. Though I may be missing
> > > something again...
> > >
> >
> > This definitely doesn't look "obviously safe" to me. However, does
> > anyone see a problem with unconditionally leaving IF disabled even on 32
> > bits (I haven't traced all the paths yet), i.e. doing the *opposite* of
> > Ian's patch #2?

Right, enabling IRQs there isn't cool, currently there's still
__ARCH_WANT_INTERRUPTS_ON_CTXSW but we're working hard on getting rid of
that nightmare.

There's a number of very subtle things that can go wrong when you enable
interrupts over the context switch.

Leaving IRQs disabled should be the right thing, on x86 we should
_never_ have interrupts enabled there.