Re: [PATCH net-next 06/10] net/mlx4_core: Fix struct mlx4_vhcr_cmd to make implicit padding explicit

Jack Morgenstein
2015-01-27T12:59:27Z

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:43:27 +0000
David Laight <David.Laight@ACULAB.COM> wrote:

> From: Amir Vadai
> > From: Jack Morgenstein <jackm@dev.mellanox.co.il>
> >
> > Struct mlx4_vhcr was implicitly padded by the gcc compiler.
> > This commit makes that padding explicit, to prevent issues with
> > changing compilers. Note that we added the padding dword (rather
> > than simply packing the structure) in order to maintain
> > compatibility with previous kernels.
>
> It isn't a 'compiler' option, but depends on the architecture.
>
> > Reported-by: Alexander Schmidt <alexs@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Jack Morgenstein <jackm@dev.mellanox.co.il>
> > Signed-off-by: Amir Vadai <amirv@mellanox.com>
> > ---
> > drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4.h | 3 ++-
> > 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4.h
> > b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4.h index 096a81c..595e18a
> > 100644 --- a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4.h
> > +++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4.h
> > @@ -196,13 +196,14 @@ struct mlx4_vhcr {
> > struct mlx4_vhcr_cmd {
> > __be64 in_param;
> > __be32 in_modifier;
> > + u32 reserved1;
>
> Adding a pad here changes the alignment on most 32bit architectures
> (eg i386) where 64bit integers are only aligned to 4 byte boundaries.
> So you are not 'maintaining compatibility with previous kernels'.

You are correct. However, this structure is used ONLY for communication
between a Host and a Guest on that host. In the current code (before
this fix), it was not possible to run a 32-bit Guest over a 64-bit Host,
because of the implicit padding that occurred on the 64-bit Host
and did not occur on the 32-bit Guest.

With this fix, a 32-bit Guest (with the fix) will be able to run over a
64-bit Host (with or without the fix).

The padding dword thus serves to maintain 64-bit Host (old or
new) compatibility with 64-bit Guests (old or new), while allowing
64-bit Hosts to support new 32-bit Guests.

I'll fix the changelog for the next submission.

>
> > __be64 out_param;
> > __be16 token;
> > u16 reserved;
> > u8 status;
> > u8 flags;
> > __be16 opcode;
> > -};
> > +} __packed;
>
> Don't add '__packed' unless you expect the structure to be misaligned
> in memory.
> On systems that fault mis-aligned memory requests you've requested the
> compiler generate code to read/write everything using byte sized
> memory accesses and a lot of shifting and masking.

OK, I'll remove the "packed" in the next submission, since with the
padding dword 64-bit arch and 32-bit arch compilers should produce the
same offsets.

>
> David
>

Thanks for the review!

-Jack