ARM: 9446/1: Disallow kernel mode NEON when IRQs are disabled
authorArd Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Wed, 2 Apr 2025 07:05:31 +0000 (08:05 +0100)
committerRussell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
Thu, 29 May 2025 10:22:25 +0000 (11:22 +0100)
commit293bb049380e14a176e98d3701b85b6b5d3140fd
tree0d490fad92a72cfa694a092ad7e07cf67c2fdc3e
parent96e0b355883006554a0bee3697da475971d6bba8
ARM: 9446/1: Disallow kernel mode NEON when IRQs are disabled

Commit

  c79f81631142 ("ARM: 9283/1: permit non-nested kernel mode NEON in softirq context")

relaxed the rules around the use of SIMD instructions in kernel mode on
ARM, to allow such use when serving a softirq. To avoid having to
preserve/restore kernel mode NEON state when such a softirq is taken,
softirqs are now disabled when using the NEON from task context.

However, the fact that the softirq API does not allow unmasking of
softirqs with interrupts disabled was overlooked, resulting in a WARN()
in some cases, as reported by Guenter:

  WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 1145 at kernel/softirq.c:369 __local_bh_enable_ip+0x118/0x194
  Call trace:
   unwind_backtrace from show_stack+0x10/0x14
   show_stack from dump_stack_lvl+0x7c/0xac
   dump_stack_lvl from __warn+0x7c/0x1b8
   __warn from warn_slowpath_fmt+0x19c/0x1a4
   warn_slowpath_fmt from __local_bh_enable_ip+0x118/0x194
   __local_bh_enable_ip from crc_t10dif_arch+0xd4/0xe8
   crc_t10dif_arch from crc_t10dif_wrapper+0x14/0x1c
   crc_t10dif_wrapper from crc_main_test+0x178/0x360
   crc_main_test from kunit_try_run_case+0x78/0x1e0
   kunit_try_run_case from kunit_generic_run_threadfn_adapter+0x1c/0x34
   kunit_generic_run_threadfn_adapter from kthread+0x118/0x254
   kthread from ret_from_fork+0x14/0x28

While disabling softirqs is not really needed when running with IRQs
disabled (given that the only way a softirq can be delivered
asynchrously is over the back of an IRQ), let's not complicate this
logic more than needed, and simply disallow use of the NEON in kernel
mode when IRQs are disabled.

Another approach might be to only disable and re-enable softirqs if IRQs
are enabled, but other than the test case above, there are no clear use
cases for doing non-trivial arithmetic processing (hence using an
accelerated SIMD implementation) with IRQs disabled.

Reported-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Tested-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/389b899f-893c-4855-9e30-d8920a5d6f91@roeck-us.net
Reviewed-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Russell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
arch/arm/include/asm/simd.h
arch/arm/vfp/vfpmodule.c