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From:   Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org>
Date:   Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:16:48 -0400
Message-ID: <CAJvTdKmKORbA4poEPq6uKjtrqj_L8C_umKFLVnbsUsD7Vbjhjw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v9 12/26] x86/fpu/xstate: Use feature disable (XFD) to
 protect dynamic user state
To:     Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
Cc:     Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        "Chang S. Bae" <chang.seok.bae@intel.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>, X86 ML <x86@kernel.org>,
        "Brown, Len" <len.brown@intel.com>,
        Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira@intel.com>,
        "Liu, Jing2" <jing2.liu@intel.com>,
        "Ravi V. Shankar" <ravi.v.shankar@intel.com>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
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On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 6:15 PM Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 2:04 PM Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/24/21 4:17 PM, Len Brown wrote:
> > > Even if your AMX thread pool threads were to invoke this system call
> > > as soon as possible...
> > > What is to say that the thread pool is created only at a time when memory
> > > is available?  A thread could be created 24 hours into program execution
> > > under OOM conditions and this system call will return ENOMEM, and your program
> > > will in all likelihood throw up its arms and exit at the exact same place
> > > it would exit for transparently allocated buffers.
> >
> > I tried this exact line of reasoning with Thomas: it doesn't matter
> > where we run out of memory, we still need the same memory and we're
> > screwed either way.
> >
> > However, Thomas expressed a clear preference for ABIs which return
> > memory failures explicitly at syscalls versus implicit failures which
> > can happen on random instructions.
> >
> > One might say that the odds of checking for and handling a NULL value
> > (or ENOMEM) are the same as installing a signal handler.  *But*, it's
> > infinitely easier to unroll state and recover from a NULL than it is to
> > handle it from within a signal handler.  In other words, the explicit
> > ones *encourage* better programming.
>
> I agree.
> Indeed, I believe that there is universal agreement that a synchronous
> return code
> from a system call is a far superior programming model than decoding
> the location of a failure in a system call.  (no, the IP isn't random -- it is

decoding the location of the failure in a *signal hander*

> always the 1st instruction in that thread to touch a TMM register).
>
> > I'd prefer removing the demand-driven allocation at this point.
>
> Adding a pre-allocate system call that can gracefully fail
> (even though it never will) is independent from removing
> demand-driver allocation.  I would leave this to application
> developers.  Honestly, the kernel shouldn't care.
>
> --
> Len Brown, Intel Open Source Technology Center


-- 
Len Brown, Intel Open Source Technology Center