This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

x86/entry/64: Use 'xorl' for faster register clearing

to the 4.15-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git%3Ba=su...

The filename of the patch is: x86-entry-64-use-xorl-for-faster-register-clearing.patch and it can be found in the queue-4.15 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let stable@vger.kernel.org know about it.

From ced5d0bf603fa0baee8ea889e1d70971fd210894 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001

From: Dominik Brodowski linux@dominikbrodowski.net Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:59:24 +0100 Subject: x86/entry/64: Use 'xorl' for faster register clearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

From: Dominik Brodowski linux@dominikbrodowski.net

commit ced5d0bf603fa0baee8ea889e1d70971fd210894 upstream.

On some x86 CPU microarchitectures using 'xorq' to clear general-purpose registers is slower than 'xorl'. As 'xorl' is sufficient to clear all 64 bits of these registers due to zero-extension [*], switch the x86 64-bit entry code to use 'xorl'.

No change in functionality and no change in code size.

[*] According to Intel 64 and IA-32 Architecture Software Developer's Manual, section 3.4.1.1, the result of 32-bit operands are "zero- extended to a 64-bit result in the destination general-purpose register." The AMD64 Architecture Programmer’s Manual Volume 3, Appendix B.1, describes the same behaviour.

Suggested-by: Denys Vlasenko dvlasenk@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Dominik Brodowski linux@dominikbrodowski.net Cc: Andy Lutomirski luto@kernel.org Cc: Arjan van de Ven arjan@linux.intel.com Cc: Borislav Petkov bp@alien8.de Cc: Dan Williams dan.j.williams@intel.com Cc: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@linux.intel.com Cc: David Woodhouse dwmw2@infradead.org Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman gregkh@linuxfoundation.org Cc: Josh Poimboeuf jpoimboe@redhat.com Cc: Linus Torvalds torvalds@linux-foundation.org Cc: Peter Zijlstra peterz@infradead.org Cc: Thomas Gleixner tglx@linutronix.de Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180214175924.23065-3-linux@dominikbrodowski.net [ Improved on the changelog a bit. ] Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar mingo@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman gregkh@linuxfoundation.org

--- arch/x86/entry/calling.h | 16 +++++------ arch/x86/entry/entry_64_compat.S | 54 +++++++++++++++++++-------------------- 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 35 deletions(-)

--- a/arch/x86/entry/calling.h +++ b/arch/x86/entry/calling.h @@ -117,25 +117,25 @@ For 32-bit we have the following convent pushq %rcx /* pt_regs->cx */ pushq \rax /* pt_regs->ax */ pushq %r8 /* pt_regs->r8 */ - xorq %r8, %r8 /* nospec r8 */ + xorl %r8d, %r8d /* nospec r8 */ pushq %r9 /* pt_regs->r9 */ - xorq %r9, %r9 /* nospec r9 */ + xorl %r9d, %r9d /* nospec r9 */ pushq %r10 /* pt_regs->r10 */ - xorq %r10, %r10 /* nospec r10 */ + xorl %r10d, %r10d /* nospec r10 */ pushq %r11 /* pt_regs->r11 */ - xorq %r11, %r11 /* nospec r11*/ + xorl %r11d, %r11d /* nospec r11*/ pushq %rbx /* pt_regs->rbx */ xorl %ebx, %ebx /* nospec rbx*/ pushq %rbp /* pt_regs->rbp */ xorl %ebp, %ebp /* nospec rbp*/ pushq %r12 /* pt_regs->r12 */ - xorq %r12, %r12 /* nospec r12*/ + xorl %r12d, %r12d /* nospec r12*/ pushq %r13 /* pt_regs->r13 */ - xorq %r13, %r13 /* nospec r13*/ + xorl %r13d, %r13d /* nospec r13*/ pushq %r14 /* pt_regs->r14 */ - xorq %r14, %r14 /* nospec r14*/ + xorl %r14d, %r14d /* nospec r14*/ pushq %r15 /* pt_regs->r15 */ - xorq %r15, %r15 /* nospec r15*/ + xorl %r15d, %r15d /* nospec r15*/ UNWIND_HINT_REGS .if \save_ret pushq %rsi /* return address on top of stack */ --- a/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_compat.S +++ b/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_compat.S @@ -85,25 +85,25 @@ ENTRY(entry_SYSENTER_compat) pushq %rcx /* pt_regs->cx */ pushq $-ENOSYS /* pt_regs->ax */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r8 = 0 */ - xorq %r8, %r8 /* nospec r8 */ + xorl %r8d, %r8d /* nospec r8 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r9 = 0 */ - xorq %r9, %r9 /* nospec r9 */ + xorl %r9d, %r9d /* nospec r9 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r10 = 0 */ - xorq %r10, %r10 /* nospec r10 */ + xorl %r10d, %r10d /* nospec r10 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r11 = 0 */ - xorq %r11, %r11 /* nospec r11 */ + xorl %r11d, %r11d /* nospec r11 */ pushq %rbx /* pt_regs->rbx */ xorl %ebx, %ebx /* nospec rbx */ pushq %rbp /* pt_regs->rbp (will be overwritten) */ xorl %ebp, %ebp /* nospec rbp */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r12 = 0 */ - xorq %r12, %r12 /* nospec r12 */ + xorl %r12d, %r12d /* nospec r12 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r13 = 0 */ - xorq %r13, %r13 /* nospec r13 */ + xorl %r13d, %r13d /* nospec r13 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r14 = 0 */ - xorq %r14, %r14 /* nospec r14 */ + xorl %r14d, %r14d /* nospec r14 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r15 = 0 */ - xorq %r15, %r15 /* nospec r15 */ + xorl %r15d, %r15d /* nospec r15 */ cld

/* @@ -224,25 +224,25 @@ GLOBAL(entry_SYSCALL_compat_after_hwfram pushq %rbp /* pt_regs->cx (stashed in bp) */ pushq $-ENOSYS /* pt_regs->ax */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r8 = 0 */ - xorq %r8, %r8 /* nospec r8 */ + xorl %r8d, %r8d /* nospec r8 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r9 = 0 */ - xorq %r9, %r9 /* nospec r9 */ + xorl %r9d, %r9d /* nospec r9 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r10 = 0 */ - xorq %r10, %r10 /* nospec r10 */ + xorl %r10d, %r10d /* nospec r10 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r11 = 0 */ - xorq %r11, %r11 /* nospec r11 */ + xorl %r11d, %r11d /* nospec r11 */ pushq %rbx /* pt_regs->rbx */ xorl %ebx, %ebx /* nospec rbx */ pushq %rbp /* pt_regs->rbp (will be overwritten) */ xorl %ebp, %ebp /* nospec rbp */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r12 = 0 */ - xorq %r12, %r12 /* nospec r12 */ + xorl %r12d, %r12d /* nospec r12 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r13 = 0 */ - xorq %r13, %r13 /* nospec r13 */ + xorl %r13d, %r13d /* nospec r13 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r14 = 0 */ - xorq %r14, %r14 /* nospec r14 */ + xorl %r14d, %r14d /* nospec r14 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r15 = 0 */ - xorq %r15, %r15 /* nospec r15 */ + xorl %r15d, %r15d /* nospec r15 */

/* * User mode is traced as though IRQs are on, and SYSENTER @@ -298,9 +298,9 @@ sysret32_from_system_call: */ SWITCH_TO_USER_CR3_NOSTACK scratch_reg=%r8 scratch_reg2=%r9

- xorq %r8, %r8 - xorq %r9, %r9 - xorq %r10, %r10 + xorl %r8d, %r8d + xorl %r9d, %r9d + xorl %r10d, %r10d swapgs sysretl END(entry_SYSCALL_compat) @@ -358,25 +358,25 @@ ENTRY(entry_INT80_compat) pushq %rcx /* pt_regs->cx */ pushq $-ENOSYS /* pt_regs->ax */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r8 = 0 */ - xorq %r8, %r8 /* nospec r8 */ + xorl %r8d, %r8d /* nospec r8 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r9 = 0 */ - xorq %r9, %r9 /* nospec r9 */ + xorl %r9d, %r9d /* nospec r9 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r10 = 0 */ - xorq %r10, %r10 /* nospec r10 */ + xorl %r10d, %r10d /* nospec r10 */ pushq $0 /* pt_regs->r11 = 0 */ - xorq %r11, %r11 /* nospec r11 */ + xorl %r11d, %r11d /* nospec r11 */ pushq %rbx /* pt_regs->rbx */ xorl %ebx, %ebx /* nospec rbx */ pushq %rbp /* pt_regs->rbp */ xorl %ebp, %ebp /* nospec rbp */ pushq %r12 /* pt_regs->r12 */ - xorq %r12, %r12 /* nospec r12 */ + xorl %r12d, %r12d /* nospec r12 */ pushq %r13 /* pt_regs->r13 */ - xorq %r13, %r13 /* nospec r13 */ + xorl %r13d, %r13d /* nospec r13 */ pushq %r14 /* pt_regs->r14 */ - xorq %r14, %r14 /* nospec r14 */ + xorl %r14d, %r14d /* nospec r14 */ pushq %r15 /* pt_regs->r15 */ - xorq %r15, %r15 /* nospec r15 */ + xorl %r15d, %r15d /* nospec r15 */ cld

/*

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from linux@dominikbrodowski.net are

queue-4.15/x86-entry-reduce-the-code-footprint-of-the-idtentry-macro.patch queue-4.15/x86-entry-64-use-xorl-for-faster-register-clearing.patch