Re: [PATCH v3 06/19] x86/startup_64: Drop global variables keeping track of LA57 state

Ard Biesheuvel
2024-02-09T13:55:16Z

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 at 13:29, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 07:05:09PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> > static inline bool pgtable_l5_enabled(void)
> > {
> > return __pgtable_l5_enabled;
> > }
> > #else
> > -#define pgtable_l5_enabled() cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_LA57)
> > +#define pgtable_l5_enabled() !!(native_read_cr4() & X86_CR4_LA57)
> > #endif /* USE_EARLY_PGTABLE_L5 */
>
> Can we drop this ifdeffery and simply have __pgtable_l5_enabled always
> present and contain the correct value?
>

I was trying to get rid of global variable assignments and accesses
from the 1:1 mapping, but since we cannot get rid of those entirely,
we might just keep __pgtable_l5_enabled but use RIP_REL_REF() in the
accessors, and move the assignment to the asm startup code.

> So that we don't have an expensive CR4 read hidden in
> pgtable_l5_enabled()?
>

Yeah, I didn't realize it was expensive. Alternatively, we might do
something like

static __always_inline bool pgtable_l5_enabled(void)
{
unsigned long r;
bool ret;

asm(ALTERNATIVE_TERNARY(
"movq %%cr4, %[reg] \n\t btl %[la57], %k[reg]" CC_SET(c),
%P[feat], "stc", "clc")
: [reg] "=r" (r), CC_OUT(c) (ret)
: [feat] "i" (X86_FEATURE_LA57),
[la57] "i" (X86_CR4_LA57_BIT)
: "cc");
return ret;
}

but we'd still have two versions in that case.

> For the sake of simplicity, pgtable_l5_enabled() can be defined outside
> of CONFIG_X86_5LEVEL and since both vendors support 5level now, might as
> well start dropping the CONFIG ifdeffery slowly...
>
> Other than that - a nice cleanup!
>

Thanks.