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2010-10-24KVM: x86: TSC catchup modeZachary Amsden
Negate the effects of AN TYM spell while kvm thread is preempted by tracking conversion factor to the highest TSC rate and catching the TSC up when it has fallen behind the kernel view of time. Note that once triggered, we don't turn off catchup mode. A slightly more clever version of this is possible, which only does catchup when TSC rate drops, and which specifically targets only CPUs with broken TSC, but since these all are considered unstable_tsc(), this patch covers all necessary cases. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: Expose emulate_int_real()Mohammed Gamal
Signed-off-by: Mohammed Gamal <m.gamal005@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Don't track nested fault info in error-codeJoerg Roedel
This patch moves the detection whether a page-fault was nested or not out of the error code and moves it into a separate variable in the fault struct. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: Non-atomic interrupt injectionAvi Kivity
Change the interrupt injection code to work from preemptible, interrupts enabled context. This works by adding a ->cancel_injection() operation that undoes an injection in case we were not able to actually enter the guest (this condition could never happen with atomic injection). Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Track NX state in struct kvm_mmuJoerg Roedel
With Nested Paging emulation the NX state between the two MMU contexts may differ. To make sure that always the right fault error code is recorded this patch moves the NX state into struct kvm_mmu so that the code can distinguish between L1 and L2 NX state. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Allow long mode shadows for legacy page tablesJoerg Roedel
Currently the KVM softmmu implementation can not shadow a 32 bit legacy or PAE page table with a long mode page table. This is a required feature for nested paging emulation because the nested page table must alway be in host format. So this patch implements the missing pieces to allow long mode page tables for page table types. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Add kvm_mmu parameter to load_pdptrs functionJoerg Roedel
This function need to be able to load the pdptrs from any mmu context currently in use. So change this function to take an kvm_mmu parameter to fit these needs. As a side effect this patch also moves the cached pdptrs from vcpu_arch into the kvm_mmu struct. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Propagate the right fault back to the guest after gva_to_gpaJoerg Roedel
This patch implements logic to make sure that either a page-fault/page-fault-vmexit or a nested-page-fault-vmexit is propagated back to the guest. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: X86: Add kvm_read_guest_page_mmu functionJoerg Roedel
This patch adds a function which can read from the guests physical memory or from the guest's guest physical memory. This will be used in the two-dimensional page table walker. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Implement nested gva_to_gpa functionsJoerg Roedel
This patch adds the functions to do a nested l2_gva to l1_gpa page table walk. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: X86: Introduce pointer to mmu context used for gva_to_gpaJoerg Roedel
This patch introduces the walk_mmu pointer which points to the mmu-context currently used for gva_to_gpa translations. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Add infrastructure for two-level page walkerJoerg Roedel
This patch introduces a mmu-callback to translate gpa addresses in the walk_addr code. This is later used to translate l2_gpa addresses into l1_gpa addresses. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Track page fault data in struct vcpuJoerg Roedel
This patch introduces a struct with two new fields in vcpu_arch for x86: * fault.address * fault.error_code This will be used to correctly propagate page faults back into the guest when we could have either an ordinary page fault or a nested page fault. In the case of a nested page fault the fault-address is different from the original address that should be walked. So we need to keep track about the real fault-address. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Introduce inject_page_fault function pointerJoerg Roedel
This patch introduces an inject_page_fault function pointer into struct kvm_mmu which will be used to inject a page fault. This will be used later when Nested Nested Paging is implemented. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Introduce get_cr3 function pointerJoerg Roedel
This function pointer in the MMU context is required to implement Nested Nested Paging. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: X86: Introduce a tdp_set_cr3 functionJoerg Roedel
This patch introduces a special set_tdp_cr3 function pointer in kvm_x86_ops which is only used for tpd enabled mmu contexts. This allows to remove some hacks from svm code. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Make set_cr3 a function pointer in kvm_mmuJoerg Roedel
This is necessary to implement Nested Nested Paging. As a side effect this allows some cleanups in the SVM nested paging code. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: MMU: Make tdp_enabled a mmu-context parameterJoerg Roedel
This patch changes the tdp_enabled flag from its global meaning to the mmu-context and renames it to direct_map there. This is necessary for Nested SVM with emulation of Nested Paging where we need an extra MMU context to shadow the Nested Nested Page Table. Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24x86: Define MSR_EBC_FREQUENCY_IDJes Sorensen
Signed-off-by: Jes Sorensen <Jes.Sorensen@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: get rid of "restart" in emulation context.Gleb Natapov
x86_emulate_insn() will return 1 if instruction can be restarted without re-entering a guest. Signed-off-by: Gleb Natapov <gleb@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86: Fix a possible backwards warp of kvmclockZachary Amsden
Kernel time, which advances in discrete steps may progress much slower than TSC. As a result, when kvmclock is adjusted to a new base, the apparent time to the guest, which runs at a much higher, nsec scaled rate based on the current TSC, may have already been observed to have a larger value (kernel_ns + scaled tsc) than the value to which we are setting it (kernel_ns + 0). We must instead compute the clock as potentially observed by the guest for kernel_ns to make sure it does not go backwards. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24x86: pvclock: Move scale_delta into common headerZachary Amsden
The scale_delta function for shift / multiply with 31-bit precision moves to a common header so it can be used by both kernel and kvm module. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86: Unify TSC logicZachary Amsden
Move the TSC control logic from the vendor backends into x86.c by adding adjust_tsc_offset to x86 ops. Now all TSC decisions can be done in one place. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86: TSC reset compensationZachary Amsden
Attempt to synchronize TSCs which are reset to the same value. In the case of a reliable hardware TSC, we can just re-use the same offset, but on non-reliable hardware, we can get closer by adjusting the offset to match the elapsed time. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86: Move TSC offset writes to common codeZachary Amsden
Also, ensure that the storing of the offset and the reading of the TSC are never preempted by taking a spinlock. While the lock is overkill now, it is useful later in this patch series. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86: Drop vm_init_tscZachary Amsden
This is used only by the VMX code, and is not done properly; if the TSC is indeed backwards, it is out of sync, and will need proper handling in the logic at each and every CPU change. For now, drop this test during init as misguided. Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden <zamsden@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: replace x86 kvm n_free_mmu_pages with n_used_mmu_pagesDave Hansen
Doing this makes the code much more readable. That's borne out by the fact that this patch removes code. "used" also happens to be the number that we need to return back to the slab code when our shrinker gets called. Keeping this value as opposed to free makes the next patch simpler. So, 'struct kvm' is kzalloc()'d. 'struct kvm_arch' is a structure member (and not a pointer) of 'struct kvm'. That means they start out zeroed. I _think_ they get initialized properly by kvm_mmu_change_mmu_pages(). But, that only happens via kvm ioctls. Another benefit of storing 'used' intead of 'free' is that the values are consistent from the moment the structure is allocated: no negative "used" value. Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Tim Pepper <lnxninja@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: rename x86 kvm->arch.n_alloc_mmu_pagesDave Hansen
arch.n_alloc_mmu_pages is a poor choice of name. This value truly means, "the number of pages which _may_ be allocated". But, reading the name, "n_alloc_mmu_pages" implies "the number of allocated mmu pages", which is dead wrong. It's really the high watermark, so let's give it a name to match: nr_max_mmu_pages. This change will make the next few patches much more obvious and easy to read. Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Tim Pepper <lnxninja@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: Allow accessing IDT via emulator opsMohammed Gamal
The patch adds a new member get_idt() to x86_emulate_ops. It also adds a function to get the idt in order to be used by the emulator. This is needed for real mode interrupt injection and the emulation of int instructions. Signed-off-by: Mohammed Gamal <m.gamal005@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: Move kvm_guest_init out of generic codeAlexander Graf
Currently x86 is the only architecture that uses kvm_guest_init(). With PowerPC we're getting a second user, but the signature is different there and we don't need to export it, as it uses the normal kernel init framework. So let's move the x86 specific definition of that function over to the x86 specfic header file. Signed-off-by: Alexander Graf <agraf@suse.de> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: Decode memory operands directly into a 'struct operand'Avi Kivity
Since modrm operand can be either register or memory, decoding it into a 'struct operand', which can represent both, is simpler. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: drop use_modrm_eaAvi Kivity
Unused (and has never been). Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: use correct type for memory address in operandsAvi Kivity
Currently we use a void pointer for memory addresses. That's wrong since these are guest virtual addresses which are not directly dereferencable by the host. Use the correct type, unsigned long. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: push segment override out of decode_modrm()Avi Kivity
Let it compute modrm_seg instead, and have the caller apply it. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: check io permissions only once for string pioGleb Natapov
Do not recheck io permission on every iteration. Signed-off-by: Gleb Natapov <gleb@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: allow storing emulator execution function in decode tablesAvi Kivity
Instead of looking up the opcode twice (once for decode flags, once for the big execution switch) look up both flags and function in the decode tables. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-24KVM: x86 emulator: store x86_emulate_ops in emulation contextAvi Kivity
It doesn't ever change, so we don't need to pass it around everywhere. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-10-19KVM: Fix fs/gs reload oops with invalid ldtAvi Kivity
kvm reloads the host's fs and gs blindly, however the underlying segment descriptors may be invalid due to the user modifying the ldt after loading them. Fix by using the safe accessors (loadsegment() and load_gs_index()) instead of home grown unsafe versions. This is CVE-2010-3698. KVM-Stable-Tag. Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
2010-09-27Merge branch 'x86/urgent' of ↵Linus Torvalds
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip * 'x86/urgent' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip: x86: Avoid 'constant_test_bit()' misoptimization due to cast to non-volatile
2010-09-27Merge branch 'x86-fixes-for-linus' of ↵Linus Torvalds
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip * 'x86-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip: x86/amd-iommu: Fix rounding-bug in __unmap_single x86/amd-iommu: Work around S3 BIOS bug x86/amd-iommu: Set iommu configuration flags in enable-loop x86, setup: Fix earlyprintk=serial,0x3f8,115200 x86, setup: Fix earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200
2010-09-26x86: Avoid 'constant_test_bit()' misoptimization due to cast to non-volatileAlexander Chumachenko
While debugging bit_spin_lock() hang, it was tracked down to gcc-4.4 misoptimization of non-inlined constant_test_bit() due to non-volatile addr when 'const volatile unsigned long *addr' cast to 'unsigned long *' with subsequent unconditional jump to pause (and not to the test) leading to hang. Compiling with gcc-4.3 or disabling CONFIG_OPTIMIZE_INLINING yields inlined constant_test_bit() and correct jump, thus working around the kernel bug. Other arches than asm-x86 may implement this slightly differently; 2.6.29 mitigates the misoptimization by changing the function prototype (commit c4295fbb6048d85f0b41c5ced5cbf63f6811c46c) but probably fixing the issue itself is better. Signed-off-by: Alexander Chumachenko <ledest@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Michael Shigorin <mike@osdn.org.ua> Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
2010-09-24x86/hwmon: fix initialization of coretempJan Beulich
Using cpuid_eax() to determine feature availability on other than the current CPU is invalid. And feature availability should also be checked in the hotplug code path. Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@novell.com> Cc: Rudolf Marek <r.marek@assembler.cz> Cc: Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <guenter.roeck@ericsson.com>
2010-09-24Merge branch 'amd-iommu/2.6.36' of ↵Ingo Molnar
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/joro/linux-2.6-iommu into x86/urgent
2010-09-23x86/amd-iommu: Work around S3 BIOS bugJoerg Roedel
This patch adds a workaround for an IOMMU BIOS problem to the AMD IOMMU driver. The result of the bug is that the IOMMU does not execute commands anymore when the system comes out of the S3 state resulting in system failure. The bug in the BIOS is that is does not restore certain hardware specific registers correctly. This workaround reads out the contents of these registers at boot time and restores them on resume from S3. The workaround is limited to the specific IOMMU chipset where this problem occurs. Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com>
2010-09-23x86/amd-iommu: Set iommu configuration flags in enable-loopJoerg Roedel
This patch moves the setting of the configuration and feature flags out out the acpi table parsing path and moves it into the iommu-enable path. This is needed to reliably fix resume-from-s3. Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com>
2010-09-21Merge branch 'perf-fixes-for-linus' of ↵Linus Torvalds
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip * 'perf-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip: hw breakpoints: Fix pid namespace bug x86: Fix instruction breakpoint encoding oprofile: Add Support for Intel CPU Family 6 / Model 22 (Intel Celeron 540) kprobes: Fix Kconfig dependency
2010-09-16Merge branch 'x86-fixes-for-linus' of ↵Linus Torvalds
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip * 'x86-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip: x86: hpet: Work around hardware stupidity x86, build: Disable -fPIE when compiling with CONFIG_CC_STACKPROTECTOR=y x86, cpufeature: Suppress compiler warning with gcc 3.x x86, UV: Fix initialization of max_pnode
2010-09-17x86: Fix instruction breakpoint encodingFrederic Weisbecker
Lengths and types of breakpoints are encoded in a half byte into CPU registers. However when we extract these values and store them, we add a high half byte part to them: 0x40 to the length and 0x80 to the type. When that gets reloaded to the CPU registers, the high part is masked. While making the instruction breakpoints available for perf, I zapped that high part on instruction breakpoint encoding and that broke the arch -> generic translation used by ptrace instruction breakpoints. Writing dr7 to set an inst breakpoint was then failing. There is no apparent reason for these high parts so we could get rid of them altogether. That's an invasive change though so let's do that later and for now fix the problem by restoring that inst breakpoint high part encoding in this sole patch. Reported-by: Kelvie Wong <kelvie@ieee.org> Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com> Cc: Prasad <prasad@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Cc: Mahesh Salgaonkar <mahesh@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
2010-09-14compat: Make compat_alloc_user_space() incorporate the access_ok()H. Peter Anvin
compat_alloc_user_space() expects the caller to independently call access_ok() to verify the returned area. A missing call could introduce problems on some architectures. This patch incorporates the access_ok() check into compat_alloc_user_space() and also adds a sanity check on the length. The existing compat_alloc_user_space() implementations are renamed arch_compat_alloc_user_space() and are used as part of the implementation of the new global function. This patch assumes NULL will cause __get_user()/__put_user() to either fail or access userspace on all architectures. This should be followed by checking the return value of compat_access_user_space() for NULL in the callers, at which time the access_ok() in the callers can also be removed. Reported-by: Ben Hawkes <hawkes@sota.gen.nz> Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com> Acked-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> Acked-by: Chris Metcalf <cmetcalf@tilera.com> Acked-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net> Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> Acked-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Acked-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> Cc: Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com> Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> Cc: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com> Cc: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de> Cc: James Bottomley <jejb@parisc-linux.org> Cc: Kyle McMartin <kyle@mcmartin.ca> Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com> Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org> Cc: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> Cc: <stable@kernel.org>
2010-09-15x86: hpet: Work around hardware stupidityThomas Gleixner
This more or less reverts commits 08be979 (x86: Force HPET readback_cmp for all ATI chipsets) and 30a564be (x86, hpet: Restrict read back to affected ATI chipsets) to the status of commit 8da854c (x86, hpet: Erratum workaround for read after write of HPET comparator). The delta to commit 8da854c is mostly comments and the change from WARN_ONCE to printk_once as we know the call path of this function already. This needs really in depth explanation: First of all the HPET design is a complete failure. Having a counter compare register which generates an interrupt on matching values forces the software to do at least one superfluous readback of the counter register. While it is nice in theory to program "absolute" time events it is practically useless because the timer runs at some absurd frequency which can never be matched to real world units. So we are forced to calculate a relative delta and this forces a readout of the actual counter value, adding the delta and programming the compare register. When the delta is small enough we run into the danger that we program a compare value which is already in the past. Due to the compare for equal nature of HPET we need to read back the counter value after writing the compare rehgister (btw. this is necessary for absolute timeouts as well) to make sure that we did not miss the timer event. We try to work around that by setting the minimum delta to a value which is larger than the theoretical time which elapses between the counter readout and the compare register write, but that's only true in theory. A NMI or SMI which hits between the readout and the write can easily push us beyond that limit. This would result in waiting for the next HPET timer interrupt until the 32bit wraparound of the counter happens which takes about 306 seconds. So we designed the next event function to look like: match = read_cnt() + delta; write_compare_ref(match); return read_cnt() < match ? 0 : -ETIME; At some point we got into trouble with certain ATI chipsets. Even the above "safe" procedure failed. The reason was that the write to the compare register was delayed probably for performance reasons. The theory was that they wanted to avoid the synchronization of the write with the HPET clock, which is understandable. So the write does not hit the compare register directly instead it goes to some intermediate register which is copied to the real compare register in sync with the HPET clock. That opens another window for hitting the dreaded "wait for a wraparound" problem. To work around that "optimization" we added a read back of the compare register which either enforced the update of the just written value or just delayed the readout of the counter enough to avoid the issue. We unfortunately never got any affirmative info from ATI/AMD about this. One thing is sure, that we nuked the performance "optimization" that way completely and I'm pretty sure that the result is worse than before some HW folks came up with those. Just for paranoia reasons I added a check whether the read back compare register value was the same as the value we wrote right before. That paranoia check triggered a couple of years after it was added on an Intel ICH9 chipset. Venki added a workaround (commit 8da854c) which was reading the compare register twice when the first check failed. We considered this to be a penalty in general and restricted the readback (thus the wasted CPU cycles) to the known to be affected ATI chipsets. This turned out to be a utterly wrong decision. 2.6.35 testers experienced massive problems and finally one of them bisected it down to commit 30a564be which spured some further investigation. Finally we got confirmation that the write to the compare register can be delayed by up to two HPET clock cycles which explains the problems nicely. All we can do about this is to go back to Venki's initial workaround in a slightly modified version. Just for the record I need to say, that all of this could have been avoided if hardware designers and of course the HPET committee would have thought about the consequences for a split second. It's out of my comprehension why designing a working timer is so hard. There are two ways to achieve it: 1) Use a counter wrap around aware compare_reg <= counter_reg implementation instead of the easy compare_reg == counter_reg Downsides: - It needs more silicon. - It needs a readout of the counter to apply a relative timeout. This is necessary as the counter does not run in any useful (and adjustable) frequency and there is no guarantee that the counter which is used for timer events is the same which is used for reading the actual time (and therefor for calculating the delta) Upsides: - None 2) Use a simple down counter for relative timer events Downsides: - Absolute timeouts are not possible, which is not a problem at all in the context of an OS and the expected max. latencies/jitter (also see Downsides of #1) Upsides: - It needs less or equal silicon. - It works ALWAYS - It is way faster than a compare register based solution (One write versus one write plus at least one and up to four reads) I would not be so grumpy about all of this, if I would not have been ignored for many years when pointing out these flaws to various hardware folks. I really hate timers (at least those which seem to be designed by janitors). Though finally we got a reasonable explanation plus a solution and I want to thank all the folks involved in chasing it down and providing valuable input to this. Bisected-by: Nix <nix@esperi.org.uk> Reported-by: Artur Skawina <art.08.09@gmail.com> Reported-by: Damien Wyart <damien.wyart@free.fr> Reported-by: John Drescher <drescherjm@gmail.com> Cc: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venki@google.com> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> Cc: Andreas Herrmann <andreas.herrmann3@amd.com> Cc: Borislav Petkov <borislav.petkov@amd.com> Cc: stable@kernel.org Acked-by: Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>