We use a callback function into libc.so to get access to the data
structure with the information and have special versions of the test
macros which automatically use this function.
SSE registers are used for passing parameters and must be preserved
in runtime relocations. This is inside ld.so enforced through the
tests in tst-xmmymm.sh. But the malloc routines used after startup
come from libc.so and can be arbitrarily complex. It's overkill
to save the SSE registers all the time because of that. These calls
are rare. Instead we save them on demand. The new infrastructure
put in place in this patch makes this possible and efficient.
The test now takes the callgraph into account. Only code called
during runtime relocation is affected by the limitation. We now
determine the affected object files as closely as possible from
the outside. This allowed to remove some the specializations
for some of the string functions as they are only used in other
code paths.
This patch introduces a test to make sure no function modifies the
xmm/ymm registers. With the exception of the auditing functions.
The test is probably too pessimistic. All code linked into ld.so
is checked. Perhaps at some point the callgraph starting from
_dl_fixup and _dl_profile_fixup is checked and we can start using
faster SSE-using functions in parts of ld.so.
There will be more than one function which, in multiarch mode, wants
to use SSSE3. We should not test in each of them for Atoms with
slow SSSE3. Instead, disable the SSSE3 bit in the startup code for
such machines.
The original AVX patch used a function pointer to handle the difference
between machines with and without AVX support. This is insecure. A
well-placed memory exploit could lead to redirection of the execution.
Using a variable and several tests is a bit slower but cannot be
exploited in this way.
Some symbols have to be identified process-wide by their name. This is
particularly important for some C++ features (e.g., class local static data
and static variables in inline functions). This cannot completely be
implemented with ELF functionality so far. The STB_GNU_UNIQUE binding
helps by ensuring the dynamic linker will always use the same definition for
all symbols with the same name and this binding.
Some of the new multi-arch string functions for x86-64 were
not aligned to 16 byte boundarie,s possibly creating unnecessary
cache line misses and delays.
This patch adds SSSE3 strcpy/stpcpy. I got up to 4X speed up on Core 2
and Core i7. I disabled it on Atom since SSSE3 version is slower for
shorter (<64byte) data.