Patch "ARM: 8429/1: disable GCC SRA optimization" has been added to the 3.14-stable tree

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

ARM: 8429/1: disable GCC SRA optimization

to the 3.14-stable tree which can be found at:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary

The filename of the patch is:

     arm-8429-1-disable-gcc-sra-optimization.patch

and it can be found in the queue-3.14 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <[email protected]> know about it.

From: Ard Biesheuvel <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 13:24:40 +0100
Subject: ARM: 8429/1: disable GCC SRA optimization

From: Ard Biesheuvel <[email protected]>

commit a077224fd35b2f7fbc93f14cf67074fc792fbac2 upstream.

While working on the 32-bit ARM port of UEFI, I noticed a strange corruption in the kernel log. The following snprintf() statement (in drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c:efi_md_typeattr_format())

	snprintf(pos, size, "|%3s|%2s|%2s|%2s|%3s|%2s|%2s|%2s|%2s]",

was producing the following output in the log:

	|    |   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]
	|    |   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]
	|    |   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]
	|RUN|   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]*
	|RUN|   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]*
	|    |   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]
	|RUN|   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]*
	|    |   |   |   |    |WB|WT|WC|UC]
	|RUN|   |   |   |    |   |   |   |UC]
	|RUN|   |   |   |    |   |   |   |UC]

As it turns out, this is caused by incorrect code being emitted for the string() function in lib/vsprintf.c. The following code

	if (!(spec.flags & LEFT)) {
		while (len < spec.field_width--) {
			if (buf < end)
				*buf = ' ';
			++buf;
		}
	}
	for (i = 0; i < len; ++i) {
		if (buf < end)
			*buf = *s;
		++buf; ++s;
	}
	while (len < spec.field_width--) {
		if (buf < end)
			*buf = ' ';
		++buf;
	}

when called with len == 0, triggers an issue in the GCC SRA optimization pass (Scalar Replacement of Aggregates), which handles promotion of signed struct members incorrectly. This is a known but as yet unresolved issue.
(https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65932). In this particular case, it is causing the second while loop to be executed erroneously a single time, causing the additional space characters to be printed.

So disable the optimization by passing -fno-ipa-sra.

---
 arch/arm/Makefile |    8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

@@ -52,6 +52,14 @@ endif
 
 comma = ,
 
+#
+# The Scalar Replacement of Aggregates (SRA) optimization pass in GCC 4.9 and
+# later may result in code being generated that handles signed short and signed
+# char struct members incorrectly. So disable it.
+# (https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65932)
+#
+KBUILD_CFLAGS	+= $(call cc-option,-fno-ipa-sra)
+
 # This selects which instruction set is used.
 # Note that GCC does not numerically define an architecture version
 # macro, but instead defines a whole series of macros which makes

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from [email protected] are

queue-3.14/arm-8429-1-disable-gcc-sra-optimization.patch