Re: [PATCH RESEND] xor: add missing vzeroupper to AVX code

[David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 2 Sep 2026 09:23:59 -0700
Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 03:37:06PM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 02:22:48PM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:  
> > > Since the AVX optimized XOR code uses YMM registers, execute vzeroupper
> > > before returning from it.  This is needed to avoid degrading the
> > > performance of any later SSE code that may happen to be executed.
> > > 
> > > Fixes: ea4d26ae24e5 ("raid5: add AVX optimized RAID5 checksumming")
> > > Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> > > Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org>
> > > ---
> > > 
> > > This didn't get taken through the x86 tree.  Andrew, it seems you're
> > > taking patches to lib/raid/.  Can you apply this one?  
> > 
> > Can we do kernel_avx_{begin,end} instead of having to open code
> > and document this everywhere, please?  
> 
> Again, there are cases in the kernel where both AVX and SSE are used
> within a single kernel-mode FPU section, or where a CPU feature check
> occurs within the section and one or the other is used.  So that
> abstraction will not work as-is, and it would be different from all
> userspace code as well.  If you'd like to try to refactor everything you
> can try to do so, but let's not block fixing these bugs first.
> 
> Also, AVX != "vzeroupper is needed".  The relevant thing is the width of
> the registers used.  There is 128-bit AVX code.

It also depends on the instruction encoding used for 128-bit AVX code.
If the VEX encoding is used the high bits of the ymm registers get cleared
(rather than preserved) and you get different delays.
Flipping to/from VEX encoded 128bit instructions adds delays on some cpu.

Yes, it is all a mess....

David

> 
> - Eric
>