Re: [PATCH v5 02/19] ARM: LPAE: add ISBs around MMU enabling code

From: Catalin Marinas
Date: Mon May 09 2011 - 11:02:13 EST


On Mon, 2011-05-09 at 13:05 +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> On Mon, May 09, 2011 at 11:59:54AM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-05-09 at 11:32 +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > > On Mon, May 09, 2011 at 11:22:19AM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > > Alternatively an exception return would do as well (like movs pc, lr)
> > > > but I think we still add some code for setting up the SPSR.
> > >
> > > That gives us a way out of both of these without introducing any CPU
> > > specific code. We can setup the SPSR before this block of code, and
> > > call it with two movs pc, reg instructions which will provide the
> > > necessary synchronization.
> >
> > We still need an ISB before enabling the MMU to make sure that the TTBR
> > changing is visible. We may run with the MMU enabled (in the identity
> > mapping) before the exception return but with random data in TTBR.
>
> Changes to CP15 registers and the memory order model
> All changes to CP15 registers that appear in program order after any
> explicit memory operations are guaranteed not to affect those memory
> operations.
>
> Any change to CP15 registers is guaranteed to be visible to subsequent
> instructions only after one of:
> â the execution of an ISB instruction
> â the taking of an exception
> â the return from an exception.
...
> So, my reading of this suggests that ISB and returning from an exception
> (iow, movs pc, reg) have the same properties. So:
>
> mcr p15, 0, r5, c3, c0, 0 @ load domain access register
> mcr p15, 0, r4, c2, c0, 0 @ load page table pointer
> - b __turn_mmu_on
> + mrs r4, cpsr @ copy cpsr to spsr
> + msr spsr, r4

This doesn't work. From the ARM ARM (B1.3.3):

The execution state bits are the IT[7:0], J, E, and T bits. In
exception modes you can read or write these bits in the current
SPSR.
In the CPSR, unless the processor is in Debug state:
â The execution state bits, other than the E bit, are RAZ when
read by an MRS instruction.

So reading the CPSR doesn't copy the T and E bits. Of course, we could
set them explicitly but I find the ISB much simpler (and in practice we
only need it for ARMv7 onwards but adding the ARMv6 in case we have a
kernel compiled for both).

Catalin



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