Re: [PATCH v9 12/26] x86/fpu/xstate: Use feature disable (XFD) to protect dynamic user state

Len Brown
2021-08-31T22:16:10Z

On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 2:04 PM Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/24/21 4:17 PM, Len Brown wrote:
> > Even if your AMX thread pool threads were to invoke this system call
> > as soon as possible...
> > What is to say that the thread pool is created only at a time when memory
> > is available? A thread could be created 24 hours into program execution
> > under OOM conditions and this system call will return ENOMEM, and your program
> > will in all likelihood throw up its arms and exit at the exact same place
> > it would exit for transparently allocated buffers.
>
> I tried this exact line of reasoning with Thomas: it doesn't matter
> where we run out of memory, we still need the same memory and we're
> screwed either way.
>
> However, Thomas expressed a clear preference for ABIs which return
> memory failures explicitly at syscalls versus implicit failures which
> can happen on random instructions.
>
> One might say that the odds of checking for and handling a NULL value
> (or ENOMEM) are the same as installing a signal handler. *But*, it's
> infinitely easier to unroll state and recover from a NULL than it is to
> handle it from within a signal handler. In other words, the explicit
> ones *encourage* better programming.

I agree.
Indeed, I believe that there is universal agreement that a synchronous
return code
from a system call is a far superior programming model than decoding
the location of a failure in a system call. (no, the IP isn't random -- it is
always the 1st instruction in that thread to touch a TMM register).

> I'd prefer removing the demand-driven allocation at this point.

Adding a pre-allocate system call that can gracefully fail
(even though it never will) is independent from removing
demand-driver allocation. I would leave this to application
developers. Honestly, the kernel shouldn't care.

--
Len Brown, Intel Open Source Technology Center