From: Nicolas Saenz Julienne <nsaenzju@redhat.com>
To: tglx@linutronix.de, mark.rutland@arm.com, paulmck@kernel.org
Cc: rostedt@goodmis.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, rcu@vger.kernel.org,
peterz@infradead.org, mtosatti@redhat.com, frederic@kernel.org,
corbet@lwn.net, Nicolas Saenz Julienne <nsaenzju@redhat.com>
Subject: [PATCH v3 2/2] Documentation: core-api: entry: Add comments about nesting
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 11:57:53 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20211217105753.892855-2-nsaenzju@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20211217105753.892855-1-nsaenzju@redhat.com>
The topic of nesting and reentrancy in the context of early entry code
hasn't been addressed so far. So do it.
Signed-off-by: Nicolas Saenz Julienne <nsaenzju@redhat.com>
---
NOTE: I moved this into a separate patch to simplify the review.
Documentation/core-api/entry.rst | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/entry.rst b/Documentation/core-api/entry.rst
index 3f80537f2826..f665f201ead0 100644
--- a/Documentation/core-api/entry.rst
+++ b/Documentation/core-api/entry.rst
@@ -105,6 +105,8 @@ has to do extra work between the various steps. In such cases it has to
ensure that enter_from_user_mode() is called first on entry and
exit_to_user_mode() is called last on exit.
+Syscalls shouldn't nest. If it were to happen, RCU / context tracking will
+catch the misbehavior and print out a warning.
KVM
---
@@ -121,6 +123,9 @@ Task work handling is done separately for guest at the boundary of the
vcpu_run() loop via xfer_to_guest_mode_handle_work() which is a subset of
the work handled on return to user space.
+Nesting doesn't make sense in the context of KVM entry/exit transitions, it
+shouldn't happen.
+
Interrupts and regular exceptions
---------------------------------
@@ -180,6 +185,16 @@ before it handles soft interrupts, whose handlers must run in BH context rather
than irq-disabled context. In addition, irqentry_exit() might schedule, which
also requires that HARDIRQ_OFFSET has been removed from the preemption count.
+Even though interrupt handlers are expected to run with local interrupts
+disabled, interrupt nesting is common from an entry/exit perspective. For
+example, softirq handling happens within an irqentry_{enter,exit}() block, with
+local interrupts enabled. Also, although uncommon, nothing prevents an
+interrupt handler from re-enabling interrupts.
+
+Interrupt entry/exit code doesn't strictly need to handle reentrancy, since it
+runs with local interrupts disabled. But NMIs can happen anytime, and a lot of
+the entry code is shared between the two.
+
NMI and NMI-like exceptions
---------------------------
@@ -259,3 +274,7 @@ and for e.g. a debug exception it can look like this:
There is no combined irqentry_nmi_if_kernel() function available as the
above cannot be handled in an exception-agnostic way.
+
+NMIs can happen in any context. For example, an NMI-like exception triggered
+while handling an NMI. So NMI entry code has to be reentrant and state updates
+need to handle nesting.
--
2.33.1
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-12-17 10:58 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-12-17 10:57 [PATCH v3 1/2] Documentation: Fill the gaps about entry/noinstr constraints Nicolas Saenz Julienne
2021-12-17 10:57 ` Nicolas Saenz Julienne [this message]
2021-12-17 17:56 ` [PATCH v3 2/2] Documentation: core-api: entry: Add comments about nesting Paul E. McKenney
2021-12-17 17:40 ` [PATCH v3 1/2] Documentation: Fill the gaps about entry/noinstr constraints Thomas Gleixner
2021-12-17 17:51 ` Paul E. McKenney
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