Linux from 3.9 through 4.2 does not abort HTM transaction on syscalls,
instead it suspend and resume it when leaving the kernel. The
side-effects of the syscall will always remain visible, even if the
transaction is aborted. This is an issue when transaction is used along
with futex syscall, on pthread_cond_wait for instance, where the futex
call might succeed but the transaction is rolled back leading the
pthread_cond object in an inconsistent state.
Glibc used to prevent it by always aborting a transaction before issuing
a syscall. Linux 4.2 also decided to abort active transaction in
syscalls which makes the glibc workaround superfluous. Worse, glibc
transaction abortion leads to a performance issue on recent kernels
where the HTM state is saved/restore lazily (v4.9). By aborting a
transaction on every syscalls, regardless whether a transaction has being
initiated before, GLIBS makes the kernel always save/restore HTM state
(it can not even lazily disable it after a certain number of syscall
iterations).
Because of this shortcoming, Transactional Lock Elision is just enabled
when it has been explicitly set (either by tunables of by a configure
switch) and if kernel aborts HTM transactions on syscalls
(PPC_FEATURE2_HTM_NOSC). It is reported that using simple benchmark [1],
the context-switch is about 5% faster by not issuing a tabort in every
syscall in newer kernels.
Checked on powerpc64le-linux-gnu with 4.4.0 kernel (Ubuntu 16.04).
* NEWS: Add note about new TLE support on powerpc64le.
* sysdeps/powerpc/nptl/tcb-offsets.sym (TM_CAPABLE): Remove.
* sysdeps/powerpc/nptl/tls.h (tcbhead_t): Rename tm_capable to
__ununsed1.
(TLS_INIT_TP, TLS_DEFINE_INIT_TP): Remove tm_capable setup.
(THREAD_GET_TM_CAPABLE, THREAD_SET_TM_CAPABLE): Remove macros.
* sysdeps/powerpc/powerpc32/sysdep.h,
sysdeps/powerpc/powerpc64/sysdep.h (ABORT_TRANSACTION_IMPL,
ABORT_TRANSACTION): Remove macros.
* sysdeps/powerpc/sysdep.h (ABORT_TRANSACTION): Likewise.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/elision-conf.c (elision_init): Set
__pthread_force_elision iff PPC_FEATURE2_HTM_NOSC is set.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/powerpc32/sysdep.h,
sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/powerpc64/sysdep.h
sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/syscall.S (ABORT_TRANSACTION): Remove
usage.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/not-errno.h: Remove file.
Reported-by: Breno Leitão <leitao@debian.org>
This patch adds a new feature for powerpc. In order to get faster access to
the HWCAP/HWCAP2 bits and platform number (i.e. for implementing
__builtin_cpu_is () / __builtin_cpu_supports () in GCC) without the overhead of
reading from the auxiliary vector, we now reserve space for them in the TCB.
This is an ABI change for GLIBC 2.23.
A new versioned symbol '__parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform' is available to
get the data from the auxiliary vector and parse it, and store it for later use
in the TLS initialization code. This function is called very early
(in _dl_sysdep_start () via DL_PLATFORM_INFO for the dynamic linking case, and
in __libc_start_main () for the static linking case) to make sure the data is
available at the time of TLS initialization.
* sysdeps/powerpc/Makefile (sysdep-dl-routines): Add hwcapinfo.
(sysdep_routines): Likewise.
(sysdep-rtld-routines): Likewise.
[$(subdir) = nptl](tests): Add test-get_hwcap and test-get_hwcap-static
[$(subdir) = nptl](tests-static): test-get_hwcap-static
* sysdeps/powerpc/Versions: Added new
__parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform symbol to GLIBC-2.23.
* sysdeps/powerpc/hwcapinfo.c: New file.
(__tcb_parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform): New function to initialize
and parse hwcap, hwcap2 and platform number information.
* sysdeps/powerpc/hwcapinfo.h: New file. Creates global variables
to store HWCAP+HWCAP2 and platform number.
* sysdeps/powerpc/nptl/tcb-offsets.sym: Added new offsets
for HWCAP+HWCAP2 and platform number in the TCB.
* sysdeps/powerpc/nptl/tls.h: New functionality. Stores
the HWCAP, HWCAP2 and platform number in the TCB.
(dtv): Added new fields for HWCAP+HWCAP2 and platform number.
(TLS_INIT_TP): Included calls to add the hwcap and
at_platform values in the TCB in TP initialization.
(TLS_DEFINE_INIT_TP): Likewise.
(THREAD_GET_HWCAP): New macro.
(THREAD_SET_HWCAP): Likewise.
(THREAD_GET_AT_PLATFORM): Likewise.
(THREAD_SET_AT_PLATFORM): Likewise.
* sysdeps/powerpc/powerpc32/dl-machine.h:
(dl_platform_init): New function that calls
__parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform for the dymanic linking case for
powerpc32.
* sysdeps/powerpc/powerpc64/dl-machine.h: Likewise, for powerpc64.
* sysdeps/powerpc/test-get_hwcap-static.c: New file. Testcase for
this functionality, static linking case.
* sysdeps/powerpc/test-get_hwcap.c: New file. Likewise, dynamic
linking case.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/libc-start.c: Added call to
__parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform for the static linking case.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/powerpc32/ld.abilist:
Included the new __parse_hwcap_and_convert_at_platform symbol in the
ABI list for GLIBC 2.23.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/powerpc64/ld-le.abilist:
Likewise.
* sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/powerpc/powerpc64/ld.abilist:
Likewise.
Linux kernel powerpc documentation states issuing a syscall inside a
transaction is not recommended and may lead to undefined behavior. It
also states syscalls does not abort transactoin neither they run in
transactional state.
To avoid side-effects being visible outside transactions, GLIBC with
lock elision enabled will issue a transaction abort instruction just
before all syscalls if hardware supports hardware transactions.
