[PATCH 1/2] powerpc/64s/radix: do not flush TLB when relaxing access

[Nicholas Piggin]

On Wed, 9 May 2018 18:27:07 +1000
Balbir Singh <bsingharora at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Nicholas Piggin <npiggin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 9 May 2018 17:07:47 +1000
> > Balbir Singh <bsingharora at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  
> >> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:51 PM, Nicholas Piggin <npiggin at gmail.com> wrote:  
> >> > Radix flushes the TLB when updating ptes to increase permissiveness
> >> > of protection (increase access authority). Book3S does not require
> >> > TLB flushing in this case, and it is not done on hash. This patch
> >> > avoids the flush for radix.
> >> >
> >> > From Power ISA v3.0B, p.1090:
> >> >
> >> >     Setting a Reference or Change Bit or Upgrading Access Authority
> >> >     (PTE Subject to Atomic Hardware Updates)
> >> >
> >> >     If the only change being made to a valid PTE that is subject to
> >> >     atomic hardware updates is to set the Reference or Change bit to 1
> >> >     or to add access authorities, a simpler sequence suffices because
> >> >     the translation hardware will refetch the PTE if an access is
> >> >     attempted for which the only problems were reference and/or change
> >> >     bits needing to be set or insufficient access authority.
> >> >
> >> > Signed-off-by: Nicholas Piggin <npiggin at gmail.com>
> >> > ---
> >> >  arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable-book3s64.c | 1 -
> >> >  arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable.c          | 3 ++-
> >> >  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >> >
> >> > diff --git a/arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable-book3s64.c b/arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable-book3s64.c
> >> > index 518518fb7c45..6e991eaccab4 100644
> >> > --- a/arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable-book3s64.c
> >> > +++ b/arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable-book3s64.c
> >> > @@ -40,7 +40,6 @@ int pmdp_set_access_flags(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long address,
> >> >         if (changed) {
> >> >                 __ptep_set_access_flags(vma->vm_mm, pmdp_ptep(pmdp),
> >> >                                         pmd_pte(entry), address);
> >> > -               flush_pmd_tlb_range(vma, address, address + HPAGE_PMD_SIZE);  
> >>
> >> The comment states that this can be used for missing execution
> >> permissions as well. I am not convinced we can skip a flush in those
> >> cases  
> >
> > Why not? Execute is part of the access authority. And they're already no
> > ops on hash. What am I missing?  
> 
> I have not reviewed the hash code, but if relaxing access means
> allowing the code to provide execute permission,

Yes, adding RWX or RC bits would qualify at least.

> won't this result in
> spurious faults?

Well it gets called as part of page faults, which means the MMU will
already reload the pte when the access is retried, as per the ISA.

A few paths actually don't call it from page fault paths, but the
cost of a superfluous fault occasionally versus always doing a tlbie
makes this the wrong thing to do. x86 and hash are the same, they
don't flush here. Hash mode should behave basically the same way in
terms of what it stores in the TLB and whether it would take more
faults. Radix is the newcomer so it should match hash without some
reason not to.

> A simple test might be to run a JIT workload and see
> if the number of faults go up with and without the patch?

What pattern of accesses are you worried about? Why is execute
different from write, for example?

Thanks,
Nick