[PATCH-v2] ARC: syscall for userspace cmpxchg assist

Older ARC700 cores (ARC750 specifically) lack instructions to implement
atomic r-w-w. This is problematic for userspace libraries such as NPTL
which need atomic primitives. So enable them by providing kernel assist.
This is costly but really the only sane soluton (othern than tight
spinning using the otherwise avaialble atomic exchange EX instruciton).

Good thing is there are only a few of these cores running Linux out in
the wild.

This only works on UP systems.

Reviewed-by: Colin Ian King <colin.king@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Vineet Gupta <vgupta@synopsys.com>
---
Changes since v1
 - errno not returned for access_ok() failing  [Colin]
 - Beefed up change log
 - WARN_ON_ONCE() for CONFIG_SMP since this is only UP safe
---
 arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h    |  1 +
 arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h |  9 +++++----
 arch/arc/kernel/process.c          | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

On 10/24/2016 09:17 AM, Vineet Gupta wrote:
> Older ARC700 cores (ARC750 specifically) lack instructions to implement
> atomic r-w-w. This is problematic for userspace libraries such as NPTL
> which need atomic primitives. So enable them by providing kernel assist.
> This is costly but really the only sane soluton (othern than tight
> spinning using the otherwise avaialble atomic exchange EX instruciton).
> 
> Good thing is there are only a few of these cores running Linux out in
> the wild.
> 
> This only works on UP systems.
> 
> Reviewed-by: Colin Ian King <colin.king@canonical.com>
> Signed-off-by: Vineet Gupta <vgupta@synopsys.com>
> ---
> Changes since v1
>  - errno not returned for access_ok() failing  [Colin]
>  - Beefed up change log
>  - WARN_ON_ONCE() for CONFIG_SMP since this is only UP safe
> ---
>  arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h    |  1 +
>  arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h |  9 +++++----
>  arch/arc/kernel/process.c          | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h b/arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h
> index e56f9fcc5581..772b67ca56e7 100644
> --- a/arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h
> +++ b/arch/arc/include/asm/syscalls.h
> @@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ int sys_clone_wrapper(int, int, int, int, int);
>  int sys_cacheflush(uint32_t, uint32_t uint32_t);
>  int sys_arc_settls(void *);
>  int sys_arc_gettls(void);
> +int sys_arc_usr_cmpxchg(int *, int, int);
>  
>  #include <asm-generic/syscalls.h>
>  
> diff --git a/arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h b/arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h
> index 41fa2ec9e02c..9a34136d84b2 100644
> --- a/arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h
> +++ b/arch/arc/include/uapi/asm/unistd.h
> @@ -27,18 +27,19 @@
>  
>  #define NR_syscalls	__NR_syscalls
>  
> +/* Generic syscall (fs/filesystems.c - lost in asm-generic/unistd.h */
> +#define __NR_sysfs		(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 3)
> +
>  /* ARC specific syscall */
>  #define __NR_cacheflush		(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 0)
>  #define __NR_arc_settls		(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 1)
>  #define __NR_arc_gettls		(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 2)
> +#define __NR_arc_usr_cmpxchg	(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 4)
>  
>  __SYSCALL(__NR_cacheflush, sys_cacheflush)
>  __SYSCALL(__NR_arc_settls, sys_arc_settls)
>  __SYSCALL(__NR_arc_gettls, sys_arc_gettls)
> -
> -
> -/* Generic syscall (fs/filesystems.c - lost in asm-generic/unistd.h */
> -#define __NR_sysfs		(__NR_arch_specific_syscall + 3)
> +__SYSCALL(__NR_arc_usr_cmpxchg, sys_arc_usr_cmpxchg)
>  __SYSCALL(__NR_sysfs, sys_sysfs)
>  
>  #undef __SYSCALL
> diff --git a/arch/arc/kernel/process.c b/arch/arc/kernel/process.c
> index be1972bd2729..59aa43cb146e 100644
> --- a/arch/arc/kernel/process.c
> +++ b/arch/arc/kernel/process.c
> @@ -41,6 +41,39 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE0(arc_gettls)
>  	return task_thread_info(current)->thr_ptr;
>  }
>  
> +SYSCALL_DEFINE3(arc_usr_cmpxchg, int *, uaddr, int, expected, int, new)
> +{
> +	int uval;
> +	int ret;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * This is only for old cores lacking LLOCK/SCOND, which by defintion
> +	 * can't possibly be SMP. Thus doesn't need to be SMP safe.
> +	 * And this also helps reduce the overhead for serializing in
> +	 * the UP case
> +	 */
> +	WARN_ON_ONCE(IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_SMP));
> +
> +	if (!access_ok(VERIFY_WRITE, uaddr, sizeof(int)))
> +		return -EFAULT;
> +
> +	preempt_disable();
> +
> +	ret = __get_user(uval, uaddr);
> +	if (ret)
> +		goto done;
> +
> +	if (uval != expected)
> +		ret = -EAGAIN;
> +	else
> +		ret = __put_user(new, uaddr);
> +
> +done:
> +	preempt_enable();
> +
> +	return ret;
> +}

It seems there is a subtle issue with this interface. Userspace cares more about
"prev" value to be able to build it's own state machine(s) - my existing uclibc
code was flawed as it was tight looping on the errno result.

We can add a return param, by passing a pointer, but I think it would be better
(and slightly cheaper) to just ditch the errno and simply return the prev value
which and current value could be checked for success/fail decision etc.

-Vineet