Peter stumbled over the barrier() after the invocation of smp_callin() in
start_secondary():
"...this barrier() and it's comment seem weird vs smp_callin(). That
function ends with an atomic bitop (it has to, at the very least it must
not be weaker than store-release) but also has an explicit wmb() to order
setup vs CPU_STARTING.
There is no way the smp_processor_id() referred to in this comment can land
before cpu_init() even without the barrier()."
The barrier() along with the comment was added in 2003 with commit
d8f19f2cac70 ("[PATCH] x86-64 merge") in the history tree. One of those
well documented combo patches of that time which changes world and some
more. The context back then was:
/*
* Dont put anything before smp_callin(), SMP
* booting is too fragile that we want to limit the
* things done here to the most necessary things.
*/
cpu_init();
smp_callin();
+ /* otherwise gcc will move up smp_processor_id before the cpu_init */
+ barrier();
Dprintk("cpu %d: waiting for commence\n", smp_processor_id());
Even back in 2003 the compiler was not allowed to reorder that
smp_processor_id() invocation before the cpu_init() function call.
Especially not as smp_processor_id() resolved to:
asm volatile("movl %%gs:%c1,%0":"=r" (ret__):"i"(pda_offset(field)):"memory");
There is no trace of this change in any mailing list archive including the
back then official x86_64 list discuss@xxxxxxxxxx, which would explain the
problem this change solved.
The debug prints are gone by now and the the only smp_processor_id()
invocation today is farther down in start_secondary() after locking
vector_lock which itself prevents reordering.
Even if the compiler would be allowed to reorder this, the code would still
be correct as GSBASE is set up early in the assembly code and is valid when
the CPU reaches start_secondary(), while the code at the time when this
barrier was added did the GSBASE setup in cpu_init().
As the barrier has zero value, remove it.
Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230509100421.GU83892@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---
V4: New patch
---
arch/x86/kernel/smpboot.c | 2 --
1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/smpboot.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/smpboot.c
@@ -238,8 +238,6 @@ static void notrace start_secondary(void
x86_cpuinit.early_percpu_clock_init();
smp_callin();
- /* otherwise gcc will move up smp_processor_id before the cpu_init */
- barrier();
/* Check TSC synchronization with the control CPU: */
check_tsc_sync_target();
