Re: [PATCH/RFC bpf-next 04/16] bpf: mark sub-register writes that really need zero extension to high bits

[Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 06:05:27PM +0000, Jiong Wang wrote:
> eBPF ISA specification requires high 32-bit cleared when low 32-bit
> sub-register is written. This applies to destination register of ALU32 etc.
> JIT back-ends must guarantee this semantic when doing code-gen.
> 
> x86-64 and arm64 ISA has the same semantic, so the corresponding JIT
> back-end doesn't need to do extra work. However, 32-bit arches (arm, nfp
> etc.) and some other 64-bit arches (powerpc, sparc etc), need explicit zero
> extension sequence to meet such semantic.
> 
> This is important, because for code the following:
> 
>   u64_value = (u64) u32_value
>   ... other uses of u64_value
> 
> compiler could exploit the semantic described above and save those zero
> extensions for extending u32_value to u64_value. Hardware, runtime, or BPF
> JIT back-ends, are responsible for guaranteeing this. Some benchmarks show
> ~40% sub-register writes out of total insns, meaning ~40% extra code-gen (
> could go up to more for some arches which requires two shifts for zero
> extension) because JIT back-end needs to do extra code-gen for all such
> instructions.
> 
> However this is not always necessary in case u32_value is never cast into
> a u64, which is quite normal in real life program. So, it would be really
> good if we could identify those places where such type cast happened, and
> only do zero extensions for them, not for the others. This could save a lot
> of BPF code-gen.
> 
> Algo:
>  - Record indices of instructions that do sub-register def (write). And
>    these indices need to stay with function state so path pruning and bpf
>    to bpf function call could be handled properly.
> 
>    These indices are kept up to date while doing insn walk.
> 
>  - A full register read on an active sub-register def marks the def insn as
>    needing zero extension on dst register.
> 
>  - A new sub-register write overrides the old one.
> 
>    A new full register write makes the register free of zero extension on
>    dst register.
> 
>  - When propagating register read64 during path pruning, it also marks def
>    insns whose defs are hanging active sub-register, if there is any read64
>    from shown from the equal state.
> 
> Reviewed-by: Jakub Kicinski <jakub.kicinski@netronome.com>
> Signed-off-by: Jiong Wang <jiong.wang@netronome.com>
> ---
>  include/linux/bpf_verifier.h |  4 +++
>  kernel/bpf/verifier.c        | 85 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>  2 files changed, 84 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/include/linux/bpf_verifier.h b/include/linux/bpf_verifier.h
> index 27761ab..0ae9a3f 100644
> --- a/include/linux/bpf_verifier.h
> +++ b/include/linux/bpf_verifier.h
> @@ -181,6 +181,9 @@ struct bpf_func_state {
>  	 */
>  	u32 subprogno;
>  
> +	/* tracks subreg definition. */
> +	s32 subreg_def[MAX_BPF_REG];

Same comment as Ed and another question: why it's not part of bpf_reg_state ?