Hello!
From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
tl;dr: CPUs with CPUID.80000008H but without CPUID.01H:EDX[CLFSH]
will end up reporting cache_line_size()==0 and bad things happen.
Fill in a default on those to avoid the problem.
Long Story:
The kernel dies a horrible death if c->x86_cache_alignment (aka.
cache_line_size() is 0. Normally, this value is populated from
c->x86_clflush_size.
Right now the code is set up to get c->x86_clflush_size from two
places. First, modern CPUs get it from CPUID. Old CPUs that don't
have leaf 0x80000008 (or CPUID at all) just get some sane defaults
from the kernel in get_cpu_address_sizes().
The vast majority of CPUs that have leaf 0x80000008 also get
->x86_clflush_size from CPUID. But there are oddballs.
Intel Quark CPUs[1] and others[2] have leaf 0x80000008 but don't set
CPUID.01H:EDX[CLFSH], so they skip over filling in ->x86_clflush_size:
cpuid(0x00000001, &tfms, &misc, &junk, &cap0);
if (cap0 & (1<<19))
c->x86_clflush_size = ((misc >> 8) & 0xff) * 8;
So they: land in get_cpu_address_sizes(), set vp_bits_from_cpuid=0 and
never fill in c->x86_clflush_size, assign c->x86_cache_alignment, and
hilarity ensues in code like:
buffer = kzalloc(ALIGN(sizeof(*buffer), cache_line_size()),
GFP_KERNEL);
To fix this, always provide a sane value for ->x86_clflush_size.
Big thanks to Andy Shevchenko for finding and reporting this and also
providing a first pass at a fix. But his fix was only partial and only
worked on the Quark CPUs. It would not, for instance, have worked on
the QEMU config.
1. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/InstLatx64/InstLatx64/master/GenuineIntel/GenuineIntel0000590_Clanton_03_CPUID.txt
2. You can also get this behavior if you use "-cpu 486,+clzero"
in QEMU.
Tested-by: Jörn Heusipp <osmanx@xxxxxxxxxx>
See
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5e31cad3-ad4d-493e-ab07-724cfbfaba44@xxxxxxxxxx/
Best regards,
Jörn
