On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 09:46:36AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote: > On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 07:27:09PM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote: > > > > + pte_t old_pte, new_pte; > > > + > > > + do { > > > + old_pte = READ_ONCE(*ptep); > > > + new_pte = pte_wrprotect(old_pte); > > > > Maybe I'm missing something but those two can happen outside of the > > loop, no? Or is *ptep somehow changing concurrently while the loop is > > doing the CMPXCHG and you need to recreate it each time? > > > > IOW, you can generate upfront and do the empty loop... > > > > > + > > > + } while (!try_cmpxchg(&ptep->pte, &old_pte.pte, new_pte.pte)); > > > + > > > + return; > > > + } > > Empty loop would be wrong, but that wants to be written like: > > old_pte = READ_ONCE(*ptep); > do { > new_pte = pte_wrprotect(old_pte); > } while (try_cmpxchg(&ptep->pte, &old_pte.pte, new_pte.pte)); ! went missing, too early, moar wake-up juice. > Since try_cmpxchg() will update old_pte on failure.