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    Subject[tip:x86/vdso] x86-64: Document some of entry_64.S
    Commit-ID:  8b4777a4b50cb0c84c1152eac85d24415fb6ff7d
    Gitweb: http://git.kernel.org/tip/8b4777a4b50cb0c84c1152eac85d24415fb6ff7d
    Author: Andy Lutomirski <luto@MIT.EDU>
    AuthorDate: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 13:50:18 -0400
    Committer: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
    CommitDate: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 21:30:32 +0200

    x86-64: Document some of entry_64.S

    Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@mit.edu>
    Cc: Jesper Juhl <jj@chaosbits.net>
    Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
    Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
    Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>
    Cc: Jan Beulich <JBeulich@novell.com>
    Cc: richard -rw- weinberger <richard.weinberger@gmail.com>
    Cc: Mikael Pettersson <mikpe@it.uu.se>
    Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
    Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
    Cc: Louis Rilling <Louis.Rilling@kerlabs.com>
    Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
    Cc: pageexec@freemail.hu
    Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/fc134867cc550977cc996866129e11a16ba0f9ea.1307292171.git.luto@mit.edu
    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
    ---
    Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt | 98 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S | 2 +
    2 files changed, 100 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

    diff --git a/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt b/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
    new file mode 100644
    index 0000000..7869f14
    --- /dev/null
    +++ b/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
    @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
    +This file documents some of the kernel entries in
    +arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S. A lot of this explanation is adapted from
    +an email from Ingo Molnar:
    +
    +http://lkml.kernel.org/r/<20110529191055.GC9835%40elte.hu>
    +
    +The x86 architecture has quite a few different ways to jump into
    +kernel code. Most of these entry points are registered in
    +arch/x86/kernel/traps.c and implemented in arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
    +and arch/x86/ia32/ia32entry.S.
    +
    +The IDT vector assignments are listed in arch/x86/include/irq_vectors.h.
    +
    +Some of these entries are:
    +
    + - system_call: syscall instruction from 64-bit code.
    +
    + - ia32_syscall: int 0x80 from 32-bit or 64-bit code; compat syscall
    + either way.
    +
    + - ia32_syscall, ia32_sysenter: syscall and sysenter from 32-bit
    + code
    +
    + - interrupt: An array of entries. Every IDT vector that doesn't
    + explicitly point somewhere else gets set to the corresponding
    + value in interrupts. These point to a whole array of
    + magically-generated functions that make their way to do_IRQ with
    + the interrupt number as a parameter.
    +
    + - emulate_vsyscall: int 0xcc, a special non-ABI entry used by
    + vsyscall emulation.
    +
    + - APIC interrupts: Various special-purpose interrupts for things
    + like TLB shootdown.
    +
    + - Architecturally-defined exceptions like divide_error.
    +
    +There are a few complexities here. The different x86-64 entries
    +have different calling conventions. The syscall and sysenter
    +instructions have their own peculiar calling conventions. Some of
    +the IDT entries push an error code onto the stack; others don't.
    +IDT entries using the IST alternative stack mechanism need their own
    +magic to get the stack frames right. (You can find some
    +documentation in the AMD APM, Volume 2, Chapter 8 and the Intel SDM,
    +Volume 3, Chapter 6.)
    +
    +Dealing with the swapgs instruction is especially tricky. Swapgs
    +toggles whether gs is the kernel gs or the user gs. The swapgs
    +instruction is rather fragile: it must nest perfectly and only in
    +single depth, it should only be used if entering from user mode to
    +kernel mode and then when returning to user-space, and precisely
    +so. If we mess that up even slightly, we crash.
    +
    +So when we have a secondary entry, already in kernel mode, we *must
    +not* use SWAPGS blindly - nor must we forget doing a SWAPGS when it's
    +not switched/swapped yet.
    +
    +Now, there's a secondary complication: there's a cheap way to test
    +which mode the CPU is in and an expensive way.
    +
    +The cheap way is to pick this info off the entry frame on the kernel
    +stack, from the CS of the ptregs area of the kernel stack:
    +
    + xorl %ebx,%ebx
    + testl $3,CS+8(%rsp)
    + je error_kernelspace
    + SWAPGS
    +
    +The expensive (paranoid) way is to read back the MSR_GS_BASE value
    +(which is what SWAPGS modifies):
    +
    + movl $1,%ebx
    + movl $MSR_GS_BASE,%ecx
    + rdmsr
    + testl %edx,%edx
    + js 1f /* negative -> in kernel */
    + SWAPGS
    + xorl %ebx,%ebx
    +1: ret
    +
    +and the whole paranoid non-paranoid macro complexity is about whether
    +to suffer that RDMSR cost.
    +
    +If we are at an interrupt or user-trap/gate-alike boundary then we can
    +use the faster check: the stack will be a reliable indicator of
    +whether SWAPGS was already done: if we see that we are a secondary
    +entry interrupting kernel mode execution, then we know that the GS
    +base has already been switched. If it says that we interrupted
    +user-space execution then we must do the SWAPGS.
    +
    +But if we are in an NMI/MCE/DEBUG/whatever super-atomic entry context,
    +which might have triggered right after a normal entry wrote CS to the
    +stack but before we executed SWAPGS, then the only safe way to check
    +for GS is the slower method: the RDMSR.
    +
    +So we try only to mark those entry methods 'paranoid' that absolutely
    +need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we generate all
    +'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) entry macros.
    diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S b/arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
    index 8a445a0..72c4a77 100644
    --- a/arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
    +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
    @@ -9,6 +9,8 @@
    /*
    * entry.S contains the system-call and fault low-level handling routines.
    *
    + * Some of this is documented in Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
    + *
    * NOTE: This code handles signal-recognition, which happens every time
    * after an interrupt and after each system call.
    *

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