linux

iv/linux

History

Josh Poimboeuf be261ffce6 x86: Remove X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC AMD and Intel both have serializing lfence (X86_FEATURE_LFENCE_RDTSC). They've both had it for a long time, and AMD has had it enabled in Linux since Spectre v1 was announced. Back then, there was a proposal to remove the serializing mfence feature bit (X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC), since both AMD and Intel have serializing lfence. At the time, it was (ahem) speculated that some hypervisors might not yet support its removal, so it remained for the time being. Now a year-and-a-half later, it should be safe to remove. I asked Andrew Cooper about whether it's still needed: So if you're virtualised, you've got no choice in the matter. lfence is either dispatch-serialising or not on AMD, and you won't be able to change it. Furthermore, you can't accurately tell what state the bit is in, because the MSR might not be virtualised at all, or may not reflect the true state in hardware. Worse still, attempting to set the bit may not be successful even if there isn't a fault for doing so. Xen sets the DE_CFG bit unconditionally, as does Linux by the looks of things (see MSR_F10H_DECFG_LFENCE_SERIALIZE_BIT). ISTR other hypervisor vendors saying the same, but I don't have any information to hand. If you are running under a hypervisor which has been updated, then lfence will almost certainly be dispatch-serialising in practice, and you'll almost certainly see the bit already set in DE_CFG. If you're running under a hypervisor which hasn't been patched since Spectre, you've already lost in many more ways. I'd argue that X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC is not worth keeping. So remove it. This will reduce some code rot, and also make it easier to hook barrier_nospec() up to a cmdline disable for performance raisins, without having to need an alternative_3() macro. Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/d990aa51e40063acb9888e8c1b688e41355a9588.1562255067.git.jpoimboe@redhat.com	2019-07-22 12:00:51 +02:00
..
include	x86: Remove X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC	2019-07-22 12:00:51 +02:00
lib	treewide: Add SPDX license identifier for missed files	2019-05-21 10:50:45 +02:00

Josh Poimboeuf be261ffce6 x86: Remove X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC

AMD and Intel both have serializing lfence (X86_FEATURE_LFENCE_RDTSC).
They've both had it for a long time, and AMD has had it enabled in Linux
since Spectre v1 was announced.

Back then, there was a proposal to remove the serializing mfence feature
bit (X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC), since both AMD and Intel have
serializing lfence. At the time, it was (ahem) speculated that some
hypervisors might not yet support its removal, so it remained for the
time being.

Now a year-and-a-half later, it should be safe to remove.

I asked Andrew Cooper about whether it's still needed:

So if you're virtualised, you've got no choice in the matter. lfence
is either dispatch-serialising or not on AMD, and you won't be able to
change it.

Furthermore, you can't accurately tell what state the bit is in, because
the MSR might not be virtualised at all, or may not reflect the true
state in hardware. Worse still, attempting to set the bit may not be
successful even if there isn't a fault for doing so.

Xen sets the DE_CFG bit unconditionally, as does Linux by the looks of
things (see MSR_F10H_DECFG_LFENCE_SERIALIZE_BIT). ISTR other hypervisor
vendors saying the same, but I don't have any information to hand.

If you are running under a hypervisor which has been updated, then
lfence will almost certainly be dispatch-serialising in practice, and
you'll almost certainly see the bit already set in DE_CFG. If you're
running under a hypervisor which hasn't been patched since Spectre,
you've already lost in many more ways.

I'd argue that X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC is not worth keeping.

So remove it. This will reduce some code rot, and also make it easier
to hook barrier_nospec() up to a cmdline disable for performance
raisins, without having to need an alternative_3() macro.

Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/d990aa51e40063acb9888e8c1b688e41355a9588.1562255067.git.jpoimboe@redhat.com

2019-07-22 12:00:51 +02:00

include

x86: Remove X86_FEATURE_MFENCE_RDTSC

2019-07-22 12:00:51 +02:00

lib

treewide: Add SPDX license identifier for missed files

2019-05-21 10:50:45 +02:00