[3.16.y-ckt stable] Patch "x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments" has been added to the 3.16.y-ckt tree

[Luis Henriques]

This is a note to let you know that I have just added a patch titled

    x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments

to the linux-3.16.y-queue branch of the 3.16.y-ckt extended stable tree 
which can be found at:

    http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git/ubuntu/linux.git/log/?h=linux-3.16.y-queue

This patch is scheduled to be released in version 3.16.7-ckt24.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to this tree, please 
reply to this email.

For more information about the 3.16.y-ckt tree, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/ExtendedStable

Thanks.
-Luis

---8<------------------------------------------------------------

>From 31d0fd056d44170bc92861920435a86e9e87486e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andy Lutomirski <luto at kernel.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 12:47:40 -0800
Subject: x86/mm: Improve switch_mm() barrier comments

commit 4eaffdd5a5fe6ff9f95e1ab4de1ac904d5e0fa8b upstream.

My previous comments were still a bit confusing and there was a
typo. Fix it up.

Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz at infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto at kernel.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto at amacapital.net>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp at alien8.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst at gmail.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen at linux.intel.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk at redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds at linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel at redhat.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx at linutronix.de>
Fixes: 71b3c126e611 ("x86/mm: Add barriers and document switch_mm()-vs-flush synchronization")
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/0a0b43cdcdd241c5faaaecfbcc91a155ddedc9a1.1452631609.git.luto@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo at kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Luis Henriques <luis.henriques at canonical.com>
---
 arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h | 15 ++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
index 20cf2c4e1872..50f622dc0b1a 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
@@ -102,14 +102,16 @@ static inline void switch_mm(struct mm_struct *prev, struct mm_struct *next,
 		 * be sent, and CPU 0's TLB will contain a stale entry.)
 		 *
 		 * The bad outcome can occur if either CPU's load is
-		 * reordered before that CPU's store, so both CPUs much
+		 * reordered before that CPU's store, so both CPUs must
 		 * execute full barriers to prevent this from happening.
 		 *
 		 * Thus, switch_mm needs a full barrier between the
 		 * store to mm_cpumask and any operation that could load
-		 * from next->pgd.  This barrier synchronizes with
-		 * remote TLB flushers.  Fortunately, load_cr3 is
-		 * serializing and thus acts as a full barrier.
+		 * from next->pgd.  TLB fills are special and can happen
+		 * due to instruction fetches or for no reason at all,
+		 * and neither LOCK nor MFENCE orders them.
+		 * Fortunately, load_cr3() is serializing and gives the
+		 * ordering guarantee we need.
 		 *
 		 */
 		load_cr3(next->pgd);
@@ -140,9 +142,8 @@ static inline void switch_mm(struct mm_struct *prev, struct mm_struct *next,
 			 * tlb flush IPI delivery. We must reload CR3
 			 * to make sure to use no freed page tables.
 			 *
-			 * As above, this is a barrier that forces
-			 * TLB repopulation to be ordered after the
-			 * store to mm_cpumask.
+			 * As above, load_cr3() is serializing and orders TLB
+			 * fills with respect to the mm_cpumask write.
 			 */
 			load_cr3(next->pgd);
 			load_mm_ldt(next);