diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/x86/buslock.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/x86/buslock.rst | 126 |
1 files changed, 126 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/buslock.rst b/Documentation/x86/buslock.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c051e714 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/x86/buslock.rst @@ -0,0 +1,126 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +.. include:: <isonum.txt> + +=============================== +Bus lock detection and handling +=============================== + +:Copyright: |copy| 2021 Intel Corporation +:Authors: - Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com> + - Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com> + +Problem +======= + +A split lock is any atomic operation whose operand crosses two cache lines. +Since the operand spans two cache lines and the operation must be atomic, +the system locks the bus while the CPU accesses the two cache lines. + +A bus lock is acquired through either split locked access to writeback (WB) +memory or any locked access to non-WB memory. This is typically thousands of +cycles slower than an atomic operation within a cache line. It also disrupts +performance on other cores and brings the whole system to its knees. + +Detection +========= + +Intel processors may support either or both of the following hardware +mechanisms to detect split locks and bus locks. + +#AC exception for split lock detection +-------------------------------------- + +Beginning with the Tremont Atom CPU split lock operations may raise an +Alignment Check (#AC) exception when a split lock operation is attemped. + +#DB exception for bus lock detection +------------------------------------ + +Some CPUs have the ability to notify the kernel by an #DB trap after a user +instruction acquires a bus lock and is executed. This allows the kernel to +terminate the application or to enforce throttling. + +Software handling +================= + +The kernel #AC and #DB handlers handle bus lock based on the kernel +parameter "split_lock_detect". Here is a summary of different options: + ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ +|split_lock_detect=|#AC for split lock |#DB for bus lock | ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ +|off |Do nothing |Do nothing | ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ +|warn |Kernel OOPs |Warn once per task and | +|(default) |Warn once per task and |and continues to run. | +| |disable future checking | | +| |When both features are | | +| |supported, warn in #AC | | ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ +|fatal |Kernel OOPs |Send SIGBUS to user. | +| |Send SIGBUS to user | | +| |When both features are | | +| |supported, fatal in #AC | | ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ +|ratelimit:N |Do nothing |Limit bus lock rate to | +|(0 < N <= 1000) | |N bus locks per second | +| | |system wide and warn on| +| | |bus locks. | ++------------------+----------------------------+-----------------------+ + +Usages +====== + +Detecting and handling bus lock may find usages in various areas: + +It is critical for real time system designers who build consolidated real +time systems. These systems run hard real time code on some cores and run +"untrusted" user processes on other cores. The hard real time cannot afford +to have any bus lock from the untrusted processes to hurt real time +performance. To date the designers have been unable to deploy these +solutions as they have no way to prevent the "untrusted" user code from +generating split lock and bus lock to block the hard real time code to +access memory during bus locking. + +It's also useful for general computing to prevent guests or user +applications from slowing down the overall system by executing instructions +with bus lock. + + +Guidance +======== +off +--- + +Disable checking for split lock and bus lock. This option can be useful if +there are legacy applications that trigger these events at a low rate so +that mitigation is not needed. + +warn +---- + +A warning is emitted when a bus lock is detected which allows to identify +the offending application. This is the default behavior. + +fatal +----- + +In this case, the bus lock is not tolerated and the process is killed. + +ratelimit +--------- + +A system wide bus lock rate limit N is specified where 0 < N <= 1000. This +allows a bus lock rate up to N bus locks per second. When the bus lock rate +is exceeded then any task which is caught via the buslock #DB exception is +throttled by enforced sleeps until the rate goes under the limit again. + +This is an effective mitigation in cases where a minimal impact can be +tolerated, but an eventual Denial of Service attack has to be prevented. It +allows to identify the offending processes and analyze whether they are +malicious or just badly written. + +Selecting a rate limit of 1000 allows the bus to be locked for up to about +seven million cycles each second (assuming 7000 cycles for each bus +lock). On a 2 GHz processor that would be about 0.35% system slowdown. |