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arm: Remaining issue with alignment of __log_buf in printk.c

DISCUSSION Jonathan Cameron 5 participants 7 messages May 27, 2012 – May 29, 2012

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#0 lore raw

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

Tree was effectively today's mainline.

Saddly I have too many other bits to fit in today for futher investigation (hence this information free email!)

Jonathan

#1 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Quoted 4 lines

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

The first element in the structure type that's actually stored in the __log_buf array is a u64; see struct log in kernel/printk.c. Depending on alignment rules, a u64 and a struct containing it might require a 4-byte or 8-byte alignment. The following link implies this might have changed over time:

http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort#Struct_packing_and_alignment

(see "64-bit data type alignment" a little below that anchor). I'm not sure what ABI the kernel expects to use internally, or your compiler; perhaps you need the new EABI 8-byte alignment requirement for a u64 and hence the struct as a whole, but Tegra (or my toolchain?) is OK with the older 4-byte alignment for a u64 or struct?

Further, I'm not sure if the following alignment selection logic:

Quoted 5 lines

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

... uses the CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS for its intended purpose?

Russell, can you please comment here. Thanks.

#2 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 9 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 4 lines

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

First thing to point out is that PXA27x is Xscale, not StrongARM.

Quoted 22 lines

The first element in the structure type that's actually stored in the __log_buf array is a u64; see struct log in kernel/printk.c. Depending on alignment rules, a u64 and a struct containing it might require a 4-byte or 8-byte alignment. The following link implies this might have changed over time:

http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort#Struct_packing_and_alignment

(see "64-bit data type alignment" a little below that anchor). I'm not sure what ABI the kernel expects to use internally, or your compiler; perhaps you need the new EABI 8-byte alignment requirement for a u64 and hence the struct as a whole, but Tegra (or my toolchain?) is OK with the older 4-byte alignment for a u64 or struct?

Further, I'm not sure if the following alignment selection logic:

Quoted 5 lines

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

Quoted 4 lines

... uses the CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS for its intended purpose?

Russell, can you please comment here. Thanks.

And most likely it's using EABI which does want 8 byte alignment. So this should probably be fixed for EABI builds.

#3 lore raw
Quoted 11 lines · Russell King - ARM Linux
Quoted 10 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 9 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 4 lines

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

First thing to point out is that PXA27x is Xscale, not StrongARM.

Sorry my mistake!

Quoted 29 lines
Quoted 3 lines

The first element in the structure type that's actually stored in the __log_buf array is a u64; see struct log in kernel/printk.c.

Depending

Quoted 2 lines

on alignment rules, a u64 and a struct containing it might require a 4-byte or 8-byte alignment. The following link implies this might

have

Quoted 5 lines

changed over time:

http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort#Struct_packing_and_alignment

(see "64-bit data type alignment" a little below that anchor). I'm

not

Quoted 2 lines

sure what ABI the kernel expects to use internally, or your compiler; perhaps you need the new EABI 8-byte alignment requirement for a u64

and

Quoted 1 line

hence the struct as a whole, but Tegra (or my toolchain?) is OK with

the

Quoted 5 lines

older 4-byte alignment for a u64 or struct?

Further, I'm not sure if the following alignment selection logic:

Quoted 1 line

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) ||

defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS)

Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 4 lines

#define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 4 lines

... uses the CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS for its intended purpose?

Russell, can you please comment here. Thanks.

And most likely it's using EABI which does want 8 byte alignment.

Indeed I am using eabi.
So

Quoted 2 lines

this
should probably be fixed for EABI builds.

Signature · 1 line
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
#4 lore raw
In reply to Stephen Warren
Quoted 14 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 13 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

...

Quoted 5 lines

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

Actually, why not replace that with:

#define LOG_ALIGN (__alignof__(struct log_buf))

That way, the compiler will calculate the arch-/ABI-appropriate alignment value automatically and correctly in all cases, so we won't have to fix that ifdef above.

#5 lore raw
Quoted 22 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 14 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 13 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. ?Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

...

Quoted 5 lines

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

Quoted 7 lines

Actually, why not replace that with:

#define LOG_ALIGN (__alignof__(struct log_buf))

That way, the compiler will calculate the arch-/ABI-appropriate alignment value automatically and correctly in all cases, so we won't have to fix that ifdef above.

__alignof__(u64) will be 8 on x86_64, while the current logic results in 4. Not sure if x86_64 would somehow benefit from that, or if it's just a waste of bytes.

Are you sure it results in 4 on some architectures?

Kay

#6 lore raw
Quoted 31 lines · Kay Sievers
Quoted 22 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 14 lines · Stephen Warren
Quoted 13 lines · Jonathan Cameron

Hi All,

My stargate 2 board refused to start and after bisection I ended up at the same patch that Stephen found an alignment issue in. Unfortunately Stephen's patch doesn't seem to have fixed the issue for me.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/10/510 is the thread. Patch from Stephen is : f8450fca6ecdea38b5a882fdf6cd097e3ec8651c

Increasing the alignement for 32 bit systems to 8 seems to do the job but I can't immediately think why...

System is a pxa27x strong arm.

...

Quoted 5 lines

#if !defined(CONFIG_64BIT) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif

Quoted 7 lines

Actually, why not replace that with:

#define LOG_ALIGN (__alignof__(struct log_buf))

That way, the compiler will calculate the arch-/ABI-appropriate alignment value automatically and correctly in all cases, so we won't have to fix that ifdef above.

Quoted 5 lines

__alignof__(u64) will be 8 on x86_64, while the current logic results in 4. Not sure if x86_64 would somehow benefit from that, or if it's just a waste of bytes.

Are you sure it results in 4 on some architectures?

I have no idea to be honest, but I'd tend towards making this reliable first, and optimizing a few bytes later.

Perhaps something like the following would work though:

Quoted 5 lines

#if (__alignof__(struct log_buf) == 4) || defined(CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS) #define LOG_ALIGN 4
#else
#define LOG_ALIGN 8
#endif