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mainline build failure due to f1e4c916f97f ("drm/edid: add EDID block count and size helpers")

DISCUSSION Sudip Mukherjee 10 participants 33 messages May 27, 2022 – Jun 6, 2022

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#0 lore raw

Hi All,

The latest mainline kernel branch fails to build for arm spear3xx_defconfig with the error:

In function 'edid_block_data',

    inlined from 'drm_edid_is_valid' at drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.c:1904:25:
././include/linux/compiler_types.h:352:45: error: call to '__compiletime_assert_250'
	declared with attribute error: BUILD_BUG_ON failed: sizeof(*edid) != EDID_LENGTH

352 | _compiletime_assert(condition, msg, __compiletime_assert_, __COUNTER__)

git bisect pointed to f1e4c916f97f ("drm/edid: add EDID block count and size helpers")

And, reverting it on top of mainline branch has fixed the build failure.

--
Regards
Sudip

#1 lore raw
Quoted 4 lines · Sudip Mukherjee
        declared with attribute error: BUILD_BUG_ON failed: sizeof(*edid) != EDID_LENGTH

And, reverting it on top of mainline branch has fixed the build failure.

Hmm. That BUILD_BUG_ON() looks entirely correct, and if that sizeof() doesn't work, then the code doesn't work.

I'm not seeing what could go wrong in there, with all the structures I see being marked as __packed__.

I wonder if the union in 'struct detailed_timing' also wants that "__attribute__((packed))" but I also wonder what it is that would make this fail on spear3xx but not elsewhere.

Very strange. It would be interesting to know where that sizeof goes wrong, but it would seem to be something very peculiar to your build environment (either that config, or your compiler).

Linus

#2 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 4 lines · Sudip Mukherjee
        declared with attribute error: BUILD_BUG_ON failed: sizeof(*edid) != EDID_LENGTH

And, reverting it on top of mainline branch has fixed the build failure.

Hmm. That BUILD_BUG_ON() looks entirely correct, and if that sizeof() doesn't work, then the code doesn't work.

<snip>

Quoted 4 lines

Very strange. It would be interesting to know where that sizeof goes wrong, but it would seem to be something very peculiar to your build environment (either that config, or your compiler).

I just tested with various values, sizeof(*edid) is 144 bytes at that place.

My last good build was with fdaf9a5840ac ("Merge tag 'folio-5.19' of
git://git.infradead.org/users/willy/pagecache")
And my setup has not changed in anyway since then. Also verified the build failure on my laptop.

Signature · 2 lines
Regards
Sudip
#3 lore raw
Quoted 2 lines · Sudip Mukherjee

I just tested with various values, sizeof(*edid) is 144 bytes at that place.

Hmm. What compiler do you have? Because it seems very broken.

You don't actually have to try with various sizes, you could have just done something like

int size_of_edid(const struct edid *edid)

 {
        return sizeof(*edid);

}

and then "make drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.s" to generate assembly and see what it looks like (obviously removing the BUG_ON() in order to build).

That obviously generates code like

        movl    $128, %eax
        ret

for me, and looking at the definition of that type I really can't see how it would ever generate anything else. But it's apparently not even close for you.

I suspect some of the structs inside of that 'struct edid' end up getting aligned, despite the '__attribute__((packed))'. For example, 'struct est_timings' is supposed to be just 3 bytes, and it's at an odd offset too (byte offset 35 in the 'struct edid' if I did the math correctly).

But it obviously doesn't happen for me or for most other people, so it's something in your setup. Unusual compiler?

Linus

#4 lore raw

Hi Linus,

Quoted 6 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 2 lines · Sudip Mukherjee

I just tested with various values, sizeof(*edid) is 144 bytes at that place.

Hmm. What compiler do you have? Because it seems very broken.

I am using gcc version 11.3.1 20220517 (GCC). And I am not just building spear3xx_defconfig, I am building all the arm configs with the same compiler in the same setup and only spear3xx_defconfig started failing. I am attaching a build summary report generated on 26th May, all arm builds passed, even allmodconfig.

Quoted 1 line

<snip>

Quoted 3 lines

But it obviously doesn't happen for me or for most other people, so it's something in your setup. Unusual compiler?

And, just to verify its not my setup or the compiler I use, I took a fresh Debian Bullseye docker, installed 'gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi' from Debian and I see the same build failure with spear3xx_defconfig. This gcc from Debian Bullseye
is: gcc version 10.2.1 20210110 (Debian 10.2.1-6).

--
Regards
Sudip

HEAD -> babf0bb978e3 ("Merge tag 'xfs-5.19-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfs-linux")

allmodconfig -> pass
am200epdkit_defconfig -> pass
aspeed_g4_defconfig -> pass
aspeed_g5_defconfig -> pass
assabet_defconfig -> pass
at91_dt_defconfig -> pass
axm55xx_defconfig -> pass
badge4_defconfig -> pass
bcm2835_defconfig -> pass
cerfcube_defconfig -> pass
clps711x_defconfig -> pass
cm_x300_defconfig -> pass
cns3420vb_defconfig -> pass
colibri_pxa270_defconfig -> pass
colibri_pxa300_defconfig -> pass
collie_defconfig -> pass
corgi_defconfig -> pass
davinci_all_defconfig -> pass
dove_defconfig -> pass
ep93xx_defconfig -> pass
eseries_pxa_defconfig -> pass
exynos_defconfig -> pass
ezx_defconfig -> pass
footbridge_defconfig -> pass
gemini_defconfig -> pass
h3600_defconfig -> pass
h5000_defconfig -> pass
hackkit_defconfig -> pass
hisi_defconfig -> pass
imx_v4_v5_defconfig -> pass
imx_v6_v7_defconfig -> pass
imxrt_defconfig -> pass
integrator_defconfig -> pass
iop32x_defconfig -> pass
ixp4xx_defconfig -> pass
jornada720_defconfig -> pass
keystone_defconfig -> pass
lart_defconfig -> pass
lpc18xx_defconfig -> pass
lpc32xx_defconfig -> pass
lpd270_defconfig -> pass
lubbock_defconfig -> pass
magician_defconfig -> pass
mainstone_defconfig -> pass
milbeaut_m10v_defconfig -> pass
mini2440_defconfig -> pass
mmp2_defconfig -> pass
moxart_defconfig -> pass
mps2_defconfig -> pass
multi_v4t_defconfig -> pass
multi_v5_defconfig -> pass
multi_v7_defconfig -> pass
mv78xx0_defconfig -> pass
mvebu_v5_defconfig -> pass
mvebu_v7_defconfig -> pass
mxs_defconfig -> pass
neponset_defconfig -> pass
netwinder_defconfig -> pass
nhk8815_defconfig -> pass
omap1_defconfig -> pass
omap2plus_defconfig -> pass
orion5x_defconfig -> pass
oxnas_v6_defconfig -> pass
palmz72_defconfig -> pass
pcm027_defconfig -> pass
pleb_defconfig -> pass
pxa168_defconfig -> pass
pxa255-idp_defconfig -> pass
pxa3xx_defconfig -> pass
pxa910_defconfig -> pass
pxa_defconfig -> pass
qcom_defconfig -> pass
realview_defconfig -> pass
rpc_defconfig -> pass
s3c2410_defconfig -> pass
s3c6400_defconfig -> pass
s5pv210_defconfig -> pass
sama5_defconfig -> pass
sama7_defconfig -> pass
shannon_defconfig -> pass
shmobile_defconfig -> pass
simpad_defconfig -> pass
socfpga_defconfig -> pass
spear13xx_defconfig -> pass
spear3xx_defconfig -> failed
spear6xx_defconfig -> pass
spitz_defconfig -> pass
stm32_defconfig -> pass
sunxi_defconfig -> pass
tct_hammer_defconfig -> pass
tegra_defconfig -> pass
trizeps4_defconfig -> pass
u8500_defconfig -> pass
versatile_defconfig -> pass
vexpress_defconfig -> pass
vf610m4_defconfig -> pass
viper_defconfig -> pass
vt8500_v6_v7_defconfig -> pass
xcep_defconfig -> pass
zeus_defconfig -> pass

#5 lore raw
In reply to Linus Torvalds
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 2 lines · Sudip Mukherjee

I just tested with various values, sizeof(*edid) is 144 bytes at that place.

Hmm. What compiler do you have? Because it seems very broken.

You don't actually have to try with various sizes, you could have just done something like

Quoted 8 lines

int size_of_edid(const struct edid *edid)

 {
        return sizeof(*edid);

}

and then "make drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.s" to generate assembly and see what it looks like (obviously removing the BUG_ON() in order to build).

just tried this with
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.s

Quoted 5 lines

That obviously generates code like

        movl    $128, %eax
        ret

and for me it looks like:

.L1030:

        .word   .LC40
        .word   .LC41
        .word   -1431655765
        .word   .LC39
        .size   drm_edid_to_sad, .-drm_edid_to_sad
        .align  2

.global size_of_edid
.syntax unified
.arm
.type size_of_edid, %function
size_of_edid:
@ args = 0, pretend = 0, frame = 0 @ frame_needed = 1, uses_anonymous_args = 0
mov ip, sp @,
push {fp, ip, lr, pc} @
sub fp, ip, #4 @,,
@ drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.c:1573: }

        mov     r0, #144        @,
        ldmfd   sp, {fp, sp, pc}        @
        .size   size_of_edid, .-size_of_edid

--
Regards
Sudip

#6 lore raw
Quoted 7 lines · Sudip Mukherjee

just tried this with
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid.s

size_of_edid:
mov r0, #144 @,
ldmfd sp, {fp, sp, pc} @

So digging a bit deeper - since I have am arm compiler after all - I note that 'sizeof(detailed_timings)' is 88.

Which is completely wrong. It should be 72 bytes (an array of 4 structures, each 18 bytes in size).

I have not dug deeper, but that is clearly the issue.

Now, why that only happens on that spear3xx_defconfig, I have no idea.

Linus

#7 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Linus Torvalds

So digging a bit deeper - since I have am arm compiler after all - I note that 'sizeof(detailed_timings)' is 88.

Hmm.

sizeof() both

detailed_timings[0].data.other_data.data.range.formula.gtf2

and

detailed_timings[0].data.other_data.data.range.formula.cvt

is 7.

But the *union* of those things is

detailed_timings[0].data.other_data.data.range.formula

and its size is 8 (despite having an alignment of just 1).

The attached patch would seem to fix it for me.

Not very much tested, and I have no idea what it is that triggers this only on spear3xx_defconfig.

Some ARM ABI issue that is triggered by some very particular ARM compiler flag enabled by that config?

Adding some ARM (and SPEAR, and SoC) people in case they have any idea.

This smells like a compiler bug triggered by "there's a 16-bit member field in that gtf2 structure, and despite it being packed and aligned to 1, we somehow still align the size to 2".

I dunno. But marking those unions packed too doesn't seem wrong, and does seem to fix it.

Linus

 include/drm/drm_edid.h | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
include/drm/drm_edid.h +3 -3
index c3204a58fb09..b2756753370b 100644
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ struct detailed_data_monitor_range {
 			u8 supported_scalings;
 			u8 preferred_refresh;
 		} __attribute__((packed)) cvt;
-	} formula;
+	} __attribute__((packed)) formula;
 } __attribute__((packed));
 
 struct detailed_data_wpindex {
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ struct detailed_non_pixel {
 		struct detailed_data_wpindex color;
 		struct std_timing timings[6];
 		struct cvt_timing cvt[4];
-	} data;
+	} __attribute__((packed)) data;
 } __attribute__((packed));
 
 #define EDID_DETAIL_EST_TIMINGS 0xf7
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ struct detailed_timing {
 	union {
 		struct detailed_pixel_timing pixel_data;
 		struct detailed_non_pixel other_data;
-	} data;
+	} __attribute__((packed)) data;
 } __attribute__((packed));
 
 #define DRM_EDID_INPUT_SERRATION_VSYNC (1 << 0)
#8 lore raw
Quoted 6 lines · Linus Torvalds

Not very much tested, and I have no idea what it is that triggers this only on spear3xx_defconfig.

Some ARM ABI issue that is triggered by some very particular ARM compiler flag enabled by that config?

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

I think Russell still uses OABI kernels on his oldest machines, but it is incompatible with all modern user space and should probably not be in the defconfig.

Your patch looks like the correct solution to me.

Arnd

#9 lore raw
Quoted 4 lines · Arnd Bergmann

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

Looks like forced word (32 bit) alignment to me.

I wonder how many other structures that messes up, but I committed the EDID fix for now.

This has presumably been broken for a long time, but maybe the affected targets don't typically use EDID and kernel modesetting, and only use some fixed display setup instead.

Those structure definitions go back a _loong_ time (from a quick 'git blame' I see November 2008).

But despite that, I did not mark my fix 'cc:stable' because I don't know if any of those machines affected by this bad arm ABI issue could possibly care.

At least my tree hopefully now builds on them, with the BUILD_BUG_ON() that uncovered this.

Linus

#10 lore raw
Quoted 7 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 4 lines · Arnd Bergmann

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

Looks like forced word (32 bit) alignment to me.

Ah, of course, I keep mixing it up with the odd structure alignment of m68k, which does the opposite and aligns struct members to no more than 16 bits.

Arnd

#11 lore raw
In reply to Linus Torvalds
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 4 lines · Arnd Bergmann

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

Looks like forced word (32 bit) alignment to me.

I wonder how many other structures that messes up, but I committed the EDID fix for now.

Thanks for the fix, and the thorough commit message!

Quoted 7 lines

This has presumably been broken for a long time, but maybe the affected targets don't typically use EDID and kernel modesetting, and only use some fixed display setup instead.

Those structure definitions go back a _loong_ time (from a quick 'git blame' I see November 2008).

Quoted 6 lines

But despite that, I did not mark my fix 'cc:stable' because I don't know if any of those machines affected by this bad arm ABI issue could possibly care.

At least my tree hopefully now builds on them, with the BUILD_BUG_ON() that uncovered this.

Indeed the bug is ancient. I just threw in the BUILD_BUG_ON() on a whim as an extra sanity check when doing pointer arithmetics on struct edid *.

If there are affected machines, buffer overflows are the real danger due to edid->extensions indicating the number of extensions.

BR,
Jani.

Signature · 1 line
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
#12 lore raw
Quoted 28 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 4 lines · Arnd Bergmann

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

Looks like forced word (32 bit) alignment to me.

I wonder how many other structures that messes up, but I committed the EDID fix for now.

Thanks for the fix, and the thorough commit message!

Quoted 7 lines

This has presumably been broken for a long time, but maybe the affected targets don't typically use EDID and kernel modesetting, and only use some fixed display setup instead.

Those structure definitions go back a _loong_ time (from a quick 'git blame' I see November 2008).

Quoted 6 lines

But despite that, I did not mark my fix 'cc:stable' because I don't know if any of those machines affected by this bad arm ABI issue could possibly care.

At least my tree hopefully now builds on them, with the BUILD_BUG_ON() that uncovered this.

Quoted 6 lines

Indeed the bug is ancient. I just threw in the BUILD_BUG_ON() on a whim as an extra sanity check when doing pointer arithmetics on struct edid *.

If there are affected machines, buffer overflows are the real danger due to edid->extensions indicating the number of extensions.

That is, for EDID. Makes you wonder about all the other packed structs with enum members across the kernel.

BR,
Jani.

Signature · 1 line
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
#13 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Jani Nikula

That is, for EDID. Makes you wonder about all the other packed structs with enum members across the kernel.

It is not the 'enum' that is special here, it's the 'union' having unpacked members,
and the same thing happens when you have nested structs: both the inner and the outer aggregate need to be packed, either with __packed at the end, or on each individual member that is not fully aligned to max(sizeof(member), 4)).

I think in general, most __packed annotations we have in the kernel are completely pointless because they do not change the structure layout on any architecture but instead just make member access slower on architectures that lack unaligned load/store instructions. There have definitely been other cases though where a __packed annotation is not needed on any sane architecture but is needed for OABI ARM.

Overall I'm not that worried because the only machines running OABI kernels would be on really old hardware that runs a limited set of driver code.

A completely different matter are the extraneous __packed annotations that lead to possible problems when accessed through a misaligned pointer. We ignore -Waddress-of-packed-member and -Wcast-align in the kernel, so these never get caught at build time, but we have seen bugs from gcc making incorrect assumptions about alignment even on architectures that have unaligned load/store instructions.

Arnd

#14 lore raw
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 3 lines · Jani Nikula

That is, for EDID. Makes you wonder about all the other packed structs with enum members across the kernel.

It is not the 'enum' that is special here, it's the 'union' having unpacked members,

Obviously meant union not enum, that was just a -ENOCOFFEE on my part.

Quoted 8 lines

and the same thing happens when you have nested structs: both the inner and the outer aggregate need to be packed, either with __packed at the end, or on each individual member that is not fully aligned to max(sizeof(member), 4)).

I think in general, most __packed annotations we have in the kernel are completely pointless because they do not change the structure layout on any architecture but instead just make member access slower on

Please explain.

They are used quite a bit for parsing blob data, or serialization/deserialization, like in the EDID case at hand. Try removing __attribute__((packed)) from include/drm/drm_edid.h and see the sizeof(struct edid) on any architecture.

BR,
Jani.

Quoted 16 lines

architectures that lack unaligned load/store instructions. There have definitely been other cases though where a __packed annotation is not needed on any sane architecture but is needed for OABI ARM.

Overall I'm not that worried because the only machines running OABI kernels would be on really old hardware that runs a limited set of driver code.

A completely different matter are the extraneous __packed annotations that lead to possible problems when accessed through a misaligned pointer. We ignore -Waddress-of-packed-member and -Wcast-align in the kernel, so these never get caught at build time, but we have seen bugs from gcc making incorrect assumptions about alignment even on architectures that have unaligned load/store instructions.

Arnd

Signature · 1 line
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
#15 lore raw
Quoted 11 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 4 lines

I think in general, most __packed annotations we have in the kernel are completely pointless because they do not change the structure layout on any architecture but instead just make member access slower on

Please explain.

They are used quite a bit for parsing blob data, or serialization/deserialization, like in the EDID case at hand. Try removing __attribute__((packed)) from include/drm/drm_edid.h and see the sizeof(struct edid) on any architecture.

The annotations for edid are completely correct and necessary. However other driver authors just slap __packed annotations on any structure even if the layout is not fixed at all like:

struct my_driver_priv {
       struct device dev;
       u8 causes_misalignment;
       spinlock_t lock;
       atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
     __le64 address;
     __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Arnd

#16 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 7 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 4 lines

I think in general, most __packed annotations we have in the kernel are completely pointless because they do not change the structure layout on any architecture but instead just make member access slower on

Please explain.

Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 4 lines

They are used quite a bit for parsing blob data, or serialization/deserialization, like in the EDID case at hand. Try removing __attribute__((packed)) from include/drm/drm_edid.h and see the sizeof(struct edid) on any architecture.

The annotations for edid are completely correct and necessary. However other driver authors just slap __packed annotations on any structure even if the layout is not fixed at all like:

Right. Thanks for the examples.

Quoted 6 lines
struct my_driver_priv {
       struct device dev;
       u8 causes_misalignment;
       spinlock_t lock;
       atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */

I wonder if this is something that could be caught with coccinelle. Or sparse. Are there any cases where this combo is necessary? (I can't think of any, but it's a low bar. ;)

Cc Julia.
Quoted 7 lines

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
     __le64 address;
     __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Why is this the case, though? I'd imagine the compiler could figure this out.

BR,
Jani.

Signature · 1 line
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
#17 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 6 lines · Arnd Bergmann
struct my_driver_priv {
       struct device dev;
       u8 causes_misalignment;
       spinlock_t lock;
       atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */
Quoted 5 lines

I wonder if this is something that could be caught with coccinelle. Or sparse. Are there any cases where this combo is necessary? (I can't think of any, but it's a low bar. ;)

Cc Julia.

I think one would first have to make a list of data types that are not meant to be in a packed structure. It could be a good start to search for any packed aggregates with a pointer, atomic_t or spinlock_t in them, but there are of course many more types that you won't find in hardware structures.

Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 7 lines

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
     __le64 address;
     __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Why is this the case, though? I'd imagine the compiler could figure this out.

When you annotate the entire structure as __packed without an extra __aligned() annotation, the compiler has to assume that the structure itself is unaligned as well. On many of the older architectures, this will result in accessing the values one byte at a time. Marking the structure as "__packed __aligned(8)" instead would be harmless.

When I have a structure with a few misaligned members, I generally prefer to only annotate the members that are not naturally aligned, but this approach is not very common.

Arnd

#18 lore raw
Quoted 42 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 8 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
struct my_driver_priv {
      struct device dev;
      u8 causes_misalignment;
      spinlock_t lock;
      atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */
Quoted 5 lines

I wonder if this is something that could be caught with coccinelle. Or sparse. Are there any cases where this combo is necessary? (I can't think of any, but it's a low bar. ;)

Cc Julia.

I think one would first have to make a list of data types that are not meant to be in a packed structure. It could be a good start to search for any packed aggregates with a pointer, atomic_t or spinlock_t in them, but there are of course many more types that you won't find in hardware structures.

Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 7 lines

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
    __le64 address;
    __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Why is this the case, though? I'd imagine the compiler could figure this out.

When you annotate the entire structure as __packed without an extra __aligned() annotation, the compiler has to assume that the structure itself is unaligned as well. On many of the older architectures, this will result in accessing the values one byte at a time. Marking the structure as "__packed __aligned(8)" instead would be harmless.

Quoted 3 lines

When I have a structure with a few misaligned members, I generally prefer to only annotate the members that are not naturally aligned, but this approach is not very common.

Searching for specific types in a packed structure would be easy.

Coccinelle could duplicate the structure without the packed and see if any offsets change, using build bug on, but that would be architecture specific so maybe not useful.

Julia

Quoted 1 line

Arnd

#19 lore raw
Quoted 14 lines · Julia Lawall
Quoted 14 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 12 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
struct my_driver_priv {
      struct device dev;
      u8 causes_misalignment;
      spinlock_t lock;
      atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */

I wonder if this is something that could be caught with coccinelle. Or sparse. Are there any cases where this combo is necessary? (I can't think of any, but it's a low bar. ;)

...

Quoted 17 lines
Quoted 17 lines
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 7 lines

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
    __le64 address;
    __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Why is this the case, though? I'd imagine the compiler could figure this out.

When you annotate the entire structure as __packed without an extra __aligned() annotation, the compiler has to assume that the structure itself is unaligned as well. On many of the older architectures, this will result in accessing the values one byte at a time. Marking the structure as "__packed __aligned(8)" instead would be harmless.

Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 3 lines

When I have a structure with a few misaligned members, I generally prefer to only annotate the members that are not naturally aligned, but this approach is not very common.

Searching for specific types in a packed structure would be easy.

As an experiment: what kind of results would we get when looking for packed structures and unions that contain any of these:

- spinlock_t
- atomic_t
- dma_addr_t
- phys_addr_t
- size_t
- any pointer
- any enum
- struct mutex
- struct device

This is just a list of common data types that are used in a lot of structures but that one should never find in hardware specific types. If the output from coccinelle is 90% actual bugs, this would be really helpful. OTOH if there is no output at all, or all false-positives, we don't need to look for additional types.

Quoted 3 lines

Coccinelle could duplicate the structure without the packed and see if any offsets change, using build bug on, but that would be architecture specific so maybe not useful.

I would consider this a separate issue. The first one above is for identifying structures that are marked as packed but should not be packed at all, regardless of whether that changes the layout.

Arnd

#20 lore raw
Quoted 3 lines · Arnd Bergmann

As an experiment: what kind of results would we get when looking for packed structures and unions that contain any of these:

Yeah, any atomics or locks should always be aligned, and won't even work (or might be *very* slow) on multiple architectures. Even x86 - which does very well on unaligned data - reacts badly to sufficiently unaligned atomics (ie cacheline crossing).

I don't think we have that. Not only because it would already cause breakage, but simply because the kinds of structures that people pack aren't generally the kind that contain these kinds of things.

That said, you might have a struct that is packed, but that intentionally aligns parts of itself, so it *could* be valid.

But it would probably not be a bad idea to check that packed structures/unions don't have atomic types or locks in them. I _think_ we're all good, but who knows..

Linus

#21 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 3 lines · Arnd Bergmann

As an experiment: what kind of results would we get when looking for packed structures and unions that contain any of these:

I don't think we have that. Not only because it would already cause breakage, but simply because the kinds of structures that people pack aren't generally the kind that contain these kinds of things.

Quoted 6 lines

That said, you might have a struct that is packed, but that intentionally aligns parts of itself, so it *could* be valid.

But it would probably not be a bad idea to check that packed structures/unions don't have atomic types or locks in them. I _think_ we're all good, but who knows..

I am Julia's student at INRIA and I heard from her that there is an opportunity to use Coccinelle to find specific types in packed struct or enum.

I found 13 definitions of packed structure that contains:

Quoted 8 lines

- spinlock_t
- atomic_t
- dma_addr_t
- phys_addr_t
- size_t

- struct mutex
- struct device

- raw_spinlock_t

== Results ==
security/tomoyo/common.h: atomic_t in tomoyo_shared_acl_head drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/inline_crypto/chtls/chtls.h: spinlock_t in key_map include/linux/ti-emif-sram.h: phys_addr_t in ti_emif_pm_data drivers/scsi/wd719x.h: dma_addr_t in wd719x_scb drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2200.h: dma_addr_t in clx2_queue drivers/infiniband/hw/irdma/osdep.h: dma_addr_t in irdma_dma_mem drivers/infiniband/core/mad_priv.h: size_t in ib_mad_private drivers/crypto/qat/qat_common/qat_asym_algs.c:
- dma_addr_t in qat_rsa_ctx
- dma_addr_t in qat_dh_ctx
drivers/atm/idt77252.h: dma_addr_t in idt77252_skb_prv arch/s390/include/asm/kvm_host.h: atomic_t in kvm_s390_sie_block

drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/core.h: dma_addr_t in ath10k_skb_cb drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/core.h: dma_addr_t in ath10k_skb_cb drivers/crypto/ccp/ccp-dev.h: dma_addr_t in ccp_dma_info

The last 3 structures have a dma_adddr_t member defined as the first member variable. Most of the others also seems valid.

I used this SmPL script to find them:

@e1@
type T;
identifier i;
position p;
attribute name __packed;
@@
T@p {
...
(
atomic_t i;
|
raw_spinlock_t i;
|
struct mutex i;
|
spinlock_t i;
|
dma_addr_t i;
|
phys_addr_t i;
|
size_t i;
|
struct device i;
)
...
}
__packed;

@e2@
type T;
identifier i;
position p;
@@
T@p {
...
(
atomic_t i;
|
raw_spinlock_t i;
|
struct mutex i;
|
spinlock_t i;
|
dma_addr_t i;
|
phys_addr_t i;
|
size_t i;
|
struct device i;
)
...
}
__attribute__((
(
pack
|
__pack__
)
,... ));

@script:python@
ps <<e1.p;
@@
for p in ps:
print p.file, p.line
@script:python@
ps <<e2.p;
@@
for p in ps:
print p.file, p.line

Keisuke

#22 lore raw
Quoted 11 lines · Keisuke Nishimura

I found 13 definitions of packed structure that contains:

Quoted 7 lines

- spinlock_t
- atomic_t
- dma_addr_t
- phys_addr_t
- size_t
- struct mutex
- struct device

Quoted 1 line

- raw_spinlock_t

Ok, so I don't think dma_addr_t/phys_addr_t/size_t are problematic, they are just regular integers.

And 'struct device' is problematic only as it then contains any of the atomic types (which it does)

Quoted 3 lines

security/tomoyo/common.h: atomic_t in tomoyo_shared_acl_head drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/inline_crypto/chtls/chtls.h: spinlock_t in key_map arch/s390/include/asm/kvm_host.h: atomic_t in kvm_s390_sie_block

So these do look problematic.

I'm not actually clear on why tomoyo_shared_acl_head would be packed. That makes no sense to me.

Same goes for key_map, it's not clear what the reason for that __packed is, and it's clearly bogus. It might work, almost by mistake, but it's wrong to try to pack that spinlock_t.

The s390 kvm use actually looks fine: the structure is packed, but it's also aligned, and the spin-lock is at the beginning, so the "packing" part is about the other members, not the first one.

The two that look wrong look like they will probably work anyway (they'll presumably be effectively word-aligned, and that's sufficient for spinlocks in practice).

But let's cc the tomoyo and chelsio people.

Linus

#23 lore raw
Quoted 14 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 11 lines · Keisuke Nishimura

I found 13 definitions of packed structure that contains:

Quoted 7 lines

- spinlock_t
- atomic_t
- dma_addr_t
- phys_addr_t
- size_t
- struct mutex
- struct device

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 1 line

- raw_spinlock_t

Ok, so I don't think dma_addr_t/phys_addr_t/size_t are problematic, they are just regular integers.

And 'struct device' is problematic only as it then contains any of the atomic types (which it does)

is
I suggested this list because they are problematic for different reasons:

- any atomics are clearly broken here

- dma_addr_t/phys_addr_t are sometimes put into hardware data structures in coherent DMA allocations. This is broken because these types are variably-sized depending on the architecture, and annotating structures in uncached memory as __packed is also broken on architectures that have neither coherent DMA nor unaligned access (most 32-bit mips and armv5), where this will result in a series of expensive one-byte uncached load/store instructions.

- having any complex kernel data structure embedded in a __packed struct is a red flag, because there should not be a need to mark it packed for compatibility with either hardware or user space. If the structure is actually misaligned, passing a pointer for the embedded struct into an interface that expects an aligned pointer is undefined behavior in C, and gcc may decide to do something bad here even on architectures that can access unaligned pointers.

Quoted 9 lines
Quoted 3 lines

security/tomoyo/common.h: atomic_t in tomoyo_shared_acl_head drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/inline_crypto/chtls/chtls.h: spinlock_t in key_map arch/s390/include/asm/kvm_host.h: atomic_t in kvm_s390_sie_block

So these do look problematic.

I'm not actually clear on why tomoyo_shared_acl_head would be packed. That makes no sense to me.

Quoted 7 lines

Same goes for key_map, it's not clear what the reason for that __packed is, and it's clearly bogus. It might work, almost by mistake, but it's wrong to try to pack that spinlock_t.

The s390 kvm use actually looks fine: the structure is packed, but it's also aligned, and the spin-lock is at the beginning, so the "packing" part is about the other members, not the first one.

Right, I think the coccinelle script should nor report structures that are both packed and aligned.

Quoted 5 lines

The two that look wrong look like they will probably work anyway (they'll presumably be effectively word-aligned, and that's sufficient for spinlocks in practice).

But let's cc the tomoyo and chelsio people.

I think both of them work because the structures are always embedded inside of larger structures that have at least word alignment. This is the thing I was looking for, and the __packed attribute was added in error, most likely copied from somewhere else.

Looking at the other ones:

include/linux/ti-emif-sram.h: phys_addr_t in ti_emif_pm_data

No misalignment because of the __aligned(8), but this might go wrong if the emif firmware relies on the structure layout to have a 32-bit phys_addr_t.

drivers/scsi/wd719x.h: dma_addr_t in wd719x_scb

This one is correct, as the structure has 64 bytes of hardware data and a few members that are only accessed by the kernel. There should still be an __aligned(8) for efficiency.

drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2200.h: dma_addr_t in clx2_queue

Al marked the incorrect __packed annotations in 2008, see 83f7d57c37e8 ("ipw2200 annotations and fixes"). Mostly harmless but the __packed should just get removed here.

Quoted 2 lines

drivers/infiniband/hw/irdma/osdep.h: dma_addr_t in irdma_dma_mem drivers/infiniband/core/mad_priv.h: size_t in ib_mad_private

Same here: harmless but __packed should be removed, possibly while reordering members by size.

Quoted 3 lines

drivers/crypto/qat/qat_common/qat_asym_algs.c:
- dma_addr_t in qat_rsa_ctx
- dma_addr_t in qat_dh_ctx

Probably harmless because the structure is __aligned(64), but I'm completely puzzled by what the author was actually trying to achieve here. There are also 'bool' members in the packed struct, which is probably something we want to look for as well.

Quoted 1 line

drivers/atm/idt77252.h: dma_addr_t in idt77252_skb_prv

This is a bug on architectures with 64-bit dma_addr_t, it should be an __le32, and the structure should be __aligned() as a DMA descriptor.

Quoted 2 lines

drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/core.h: dma_addr_t in ath10k_skb_cb drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/core.h: dma_addr_t in ath10k_skb_cb

Should almost certainly not be __packed, fixing these will likely improve performance on mips32 routers using ath10k

Quoted 1 line

drivers/crypto/ccp/ccp-dev.h: dma_addr_t in ccp_dma_info

This looks ok, the "__packed __aligned(4)" here can save a bit of stack space as intended.

I think that SmPL script worked great, almost every instance is something that ought to be changed, as long as it stops reporting those structures that are also __aligned(). I would extend it to also report structures with 'bool', 'enum', or any pointer, but that could give more false-positives. Maybe have a separate script for those instances embedding atomics or spinlocks (very broken) vs the other members (causes more harm than good or might need alignment).

Arnd

#24 lore raw
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 1 line

But let's cc the tomoyo and chelsio people.

I think both of them work because the structures are always embedded inside of larger structures that have at least word alignment. This is the thing I was looking for, and the __packed attribute was added in error, most likely copied from somewhere else.

The __packed in "struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head" is to embed next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct into the bytes that would have been wasted if __packed is not specified. For example,

struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head {
        struct list_head list;
        atomic_t users;
} __packed;
struct tomoyo_condition {
        struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head head;
        u32 size; /* Memory size allocated for this entry. */
	(...snipped...)
};

saves 4 bytes on 64 bits build.

If the next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct is larger than the bytes that was saved by __packed, the saved bytes will be unused.

#25 lore raw
Quoted 24 lines · Tetsuo Handa
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 1 line

But let's cc the tomoyo and chelsio people.

I think both of them work because the structures are always embedded inside of larger structures that have at least word alignment. This is the thing I was looking for, and the __packed attribute was added in error, most likely copied from somewhere else.

The __packed in "struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head" is to embed next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct into the bytes that would have been wasted if __packed is not specified. For example,

struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head {
        struct list_head list;
        atomic_t users;
} __packed;
struct tomoyo_condition {
        struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head head;
        u32 size; /* Memory size allocated for this entry. */
        (...snipped...)
};
Quoted 4 lines

saves 4 bytes on 64 bits build.

If the next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct is larger than the bytes that was saved by __packed, the saved bytes will be unused.

Ok, got it. I think as gcc should still be able to always figure out the alignment when accessing the atomic, without ever falling back to byte access on an atomic_get() or atomic_set().

To be on the safe side, I would still either move the __packed attribute to the 'list' member, or make the structure '__aligned(4)'.

Arnd

#26 lore raw
Quoted 32 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 24 lines · Tetsuo Handa
Quoted 7 lines · Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 1 line

But let's cc the tomoyo and chelsio people.

I think both of them work because the structures are always embedded inside of larger structures that have at least word alignment. This is the thing I was looking for, and the __packed attribute was added in error, most likely copied from somewhere else.

The __packed in "struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head" is to embed next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct into the bytes that would have been wasted if __packed is not specified. For example,

struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head {
        struct list_head list;
        atomic_t users;
} __packed;
struct tomoyo_condition {
        struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head head;
        u32 size; /* Memory size allocated for this entry. */
        (...snipped...)
};
Quoted 4 lines

saves 4 bytes on 64 bits build.

If the next naturally-aligned member of a larger struct is larger than the bytes that was saved by __packed, the saved bytes will be unused.

Quoted 7 lines

Ok, got it. I think as gcc should still be able to always figure out the alignment when accessing the atomic, without ever falling back to byte access on an atomic_get() or atomic_set().

To be on the safe side, I would still either move the __packed attribute to the 'list' member, or make the structure '__aligned(4)'.

The tomoyo code generates lots of byte size accesses when built for ARMv5, but interestingly, the atomic_t accesses are emitted normally, probably due to the fact that the C api (atomic_read, atomic_set, etc) takes atomic_t pointers, and so GCC assumes natural alignment, even when inlining. But ordinary accesses of multi-byte fields in the structs in question are emitted as sequences of LDRB instructions.

I understand the reason for these annotations, but I think we should drop them anyway, and just let the compiler organize the structs.

#27 lore raw
In reply to Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 2 lines · Arnd Bergmann

- dma_addr_t/phys_addr_t are sometimes put into hardware data structures in coherent DMA allocations.

Putting a dma_addr_t into a hardware data structure is broken. dma_addr_t is the in-memory type, for the hardare it should always be a __le/__be type of the actual width that the particular piece of hardware uses.

#28 lore raw
In reply to Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 8 lines · Arnd Bergmann

I think that SmPL script worked great, almost every instance is something that ought to be changed, as long as it stops reporting those structures that are also __aligned(). I would extend it to also report structures with 'bool', 'enum', or any pointer, but that could give more false-positives. Maybe have a separate script for those instances embedding atomics or spinlocks (very broken) vs the other members (causes more harm than good or might need alignment).

I extended my script to detect __packed struct or union without __aligned. It is split in two scripts.

The first one is to search for problematic cases where __packed structs/unions have atomic types or spinlock types. In this version, types whose names contain "atomic" or "spinlock" are targeted.

== Scripts ==
@r@
type T;
identifier i;
type b =~ ".*(atomic|spinlock).*";
position p;
attribute name __packed, __aligned;
attribute at;
@@
T@p {
...
b i;
...
} at;
@script:python@
p <<r.p;
T <<r.T;
b <<r.b;
a << r.at;
@@
if not "__align" in a:
print("{}: {} in {}".format(p[0].file, b, T))

== Results ==
drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/inline_crypto/chtls/chtls.h: spinlock_t in struct key_map security/tomoyo/common.h: atomic_t in struct tomoyo_shared_acl_head include/rdma/ib_hdrs.h: struct { __be32 aeth ; __be64 atomic_ack_eth ; } in union ib_ehdrs include/rdma/ib_hdrs.h: struct ib_atomic_eth in union ib_ehdrs

The second one is to check the existence of "the other members" such as bool, pointer types. The results seem to have a lot of false positives.

== Scripts ==
@r@
type T, T2;
identifier i, eid;
position p;
attribute name __packed, __aligned;
attribute at;
@@
T@p {
...
(
dma_addr_t i;
|
phys_addr_t i;
|
size_t i;
|
struct device i;
|
enum eid i;
|
enum {...} i;
|
T2 *i;
|
bool i;
)
...
} at;
@script:python@
p <<r.p;
T <<r.T;
a << r.at;
@@
if not "__align" in a and "__packed" in a:
print("{}: {}".format(p[0].file, T))

== Results ==
drivers/net/wireless/purelifi/plfxlc/mac.h: struct plfxlc_header drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_ras_eeprom.h: struct eeprom_table_record drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/fw.h: struct mwifiex_bg_scan_cfg drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/fw.h: struct mwifiex_user_scan_cfg kernel/power/snapshot.c: struct linked_page drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/inline_crypto/chtls/chtls.h: struct key_map drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/acx.h: struct wl1271_acx_mem_map drivers/staging/vt6655/desc.h: struct vnt_rx_desc drivers/staging/vt6655/desc.h: struct vnt_tx_desc drivers/atm/idt77252.h: struct idt77252_skb_prv
drivers/scsi/myrb.h: struct myrb_enquiry
drivers/scsi/myrb.h: struct myrb_enquiry2 drivers/staging/rtl8192e/rtllib.h: struct sw_chnl_cmd sound/soc/intel/catpt/messages.c: struct catpt_set_write_pos_input drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_getnexthighmonotoniccount drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_getnextvariablename drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_gettime drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_getvariable drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_getwakeuptime drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_querycapsulecapabilities drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_queryvariableinfo drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_resetsystem drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_settime drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_setvariable drivers/firmware/efi/test/efi_test.h: struct efi_setwakeuptime fs/cifs/cifs_ioctl.h: struct smb3_notify sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-topology.h: struct skl_audio_data_format sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-topology.h: struct skl_src_module_cfg sound/soc/intel/skylake/skl-topology.h: struct skl_up_down_mixer_cfg drivers/staging/rtl8192e/rtl8192e/rtl_core.h: struct tx_ring fs/ksmbd/smb2pdu.h: struct fs_type_info
net/tipc/msg.h: struct tipc_skb_cb drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt76_connac_mcu.h: struct sta_rec_bf drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt76_connac_mcu.h: struct sta_rec_bfee include/linux/platform_data/cyttsp4.h: struct touch_framework include/linux/platform_data/cyttsp4.h: struct touch_settings drivers/scsi/wd719x.h: struct wd719x_scb
drivers/scsi/storvsc_drv.c: struct vstor_packet drivers/net/wwan/iosm/iosm_ipc_mux.h: struct iosm_mux include/linux/atmdev.h: struct atm_skb_data drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/include/wlan_bssdef.h: struct wlan_bssid_ex drivers/infiniband/ulp/iser/iscsi_iser.h: struct iser_login_desc include/sound/sof/topology.h: struct sof_ipc_comp drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2200.h: struct clx2_queue drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2200.h: struct host_cmd drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2200.h: struct ipw_fw_error drivers/staging/rtl8192e/rtl819x_HT.h: struct rt_hi_throughput drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/decl.h: struct mwifiex_11h_intf_state drivers/net/wireless/marvell/mwifiex/decl.h: struct mwifiex_radar_params security/tomoyo/common.h: struct tomoyo_acl_info drivers/net/wireless/ti/wl1251/acx.h: struct wl1251_acx_mem_map drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/core.h: struct ath10k_skb_cb include/linux/perf_event.h: struct perf_raw_frag
net/nfc/nci/hci.c: struct nci_data
include/net/sctp/ulpevent.h: struct sctp_ulpevent drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/wmi.h: struct mcast_bcast_rate drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/wmi.h: struct wmi_bcn_filter_rx_cmd drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/wmi.h: struct wmi_pno_scan_req drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/wmi.h: struct wmi_tim_info_arg sound/soc/qcom/qdsp6/audioreach.c: struct apm_graph_open_params include/uapi/sound/sof/fw.h: struct snd_sof_blk_hdr include/uapi/sound/sof/fw.h: struct snd_sof_mod_hdr drivers/staging/wlan-ng/p80211ioctl.h: struct p80211ioctl_req drivers/infiniband/ulp/isert/ib_isert.h: struct iser_tx_desc drivers/infiniband/core/mad_priv.h: struct ib_mad_private include/linux/hyperv.h: struct vmbus_channel_message_header drivers/infiniband/hw/irdma/osdep.h: struct irdma_dma_mem drivers/infiniband/hw/irdma/osdep.h: struct irdma_virt_mem drivers/crypto/qat/qat_common/adf_cfg_user.h: struct adf_user_cfg_key_val drivers/net/wireless/marvell/libertas/rx.c: struct rx80211packethdr include/linux/printk.h: struct pi_entry
net/mac80211/trace.h: struct trace_vif_entry drivers/staging/r8188eu/include/wlan_bssdef.h: struct wlan_bssid_ex arch/riscv/include/asm/alternative.h: struct alt_entry include/uapi/linux/vbox_vmmdev_types.h: struct vmmdev_hgcm_function_parameter32 include/uapi/linux/vbox_vmmdev_types.h: struct vmmdev_hgcm_function_parameter64 drivers/nfc/st21nfca/st21nfca.h: struct st21nfca_dep_info drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_network_name drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_registration drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_service drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_service_list drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_service_list_entry drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_desc_short_event drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_eit drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_eit_event drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_nit drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_pat drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_pat_program drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_pmt drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_pmt_stream drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_sdt drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_sdt_service drivers/media/test-drivers/vidtv/vidtv_psi.h: struct vidtv_psi_table_transport drivers/hv/hv_balloon.c: struct dm_info_header drivers/input/touchscreen/cyttsp4_core.h: struct cyttsp4_sysinfo_ptr fs/eventpoll.c: struct epoll_filefd drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/core.h: struct ath11k_skb_cb fs/vboxsf/shfl_hostintf.h: struct shfl_createparms fs/vboxsf/shfl_hostintf.h: struct shfl_fsobjattr drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/esw/vporttbl.c: struct mlx5_vport_key drivers/usb/typec/ucsi/ucsi_ccg.c: struct ucsi_ccg_altmode drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h: struct wl12xx_rx_filter_field drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_edif_bsg.h: struct extra_auth_els drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_def.h: struct ql_vnd_mng_host_port_param drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_def.h: struct ql_vnd_mng_host_stats_param drivers/staging/rtl8192u/r819xU_phy.h: struct sw_chnl_cmd drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_config_bss_params drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_config_bss_params_v1 drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_config_sta_params drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_config_sta_params_v1 drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_finish_scan_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_join_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_keys drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_mac_start_parameters drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_mac_stop_req_params drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_remove_bss_key_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_remove_sta_key_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_set_bss_key_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_set_link_state_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_set_sta_key_params drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_start_scan_offload_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_supported_rates drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_supported_rates_v1 drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_switch_channel_req_msg drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_update_scan_params_req drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx/hal.h: struct wcn36xx_hal_update_scan_params_req_ex drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/wmi.h: struct wmi_request_stats_cmd drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/wmi.h: struct wmi_vdev_start_resp_event drivers/net/wireless/intel/ipw2x00/ipw2100.h: struct ipw2100_cmd_header sound/soc/intel/atom/sst-mfld-dsp.h: struct snd_sst_runtime_params drivers/misc/mei/hdcp/mei_hdcp.h: struct hdcp_cmd_header arch/s390/include/asm/debug.h: struct __debug_entry

Keisuke

#29 lore raw
In reply to Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 11 lines · Arnd Bergmann

The annotations for edid are completely correct and necessary. However other driver authors just slap __packed annotations on any structure even if the layout is not fixed at all like:

struct my_driver_priv {
       struct device dev;
       u8 causes_misalignment;
       spinlock_t lock;
       atomic_t counter;
} __packed; /* this annotation is harmful because it breaks the atomics */
Quoted 7 lines

or if the annotation does not change the layout like

struct my_dma_descriptor {
     __le64 address;
     __le64 length;
} __packed; /* does not change layout but makes access slow on some

architectures */

Sounds like we need a howto document for people to ignore and continue doing their own thing. :P

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#30 lore raw
In reply to Arnd Bergmann
Quoted 3 lines · Arnd Bergmann

Overall I'm not that worried because the only machines running OABI kernels would be on really old hardware that runs a limited set of driver code.

... and from what I remember, none of them care about EDID anyway.

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#31 lore raw
In reply to Jani Nikula
Quoted 33 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 32 lines · Jani Nikula
Quoted 10 lines · Linus Torvalds
Quoted 4 lines · Arnd Bergmann

It's CONFIG_ARM_AEABI, which is normally set everywhere. Without this option, you the kernel is built for the old 'OABI' that forces all non-packed struct members to be at least 16-bit aligned.

Looks like forced word (32 bit) alignment to me.

I wonder how many other structures that messes up, but I committed the EDID fix for now.

Thanks for the fix, and the thorough commit message!

Quoted 7 lines

This has presumably been broken for a long time, but maybe the affected targets don't typically use EDID and kernel modesetting, and only use some fixed display setup instead.

Those structure definitions go back a _loong_ time (from a quick 'git blame' I see November 2008).

Quoted 6 lines

But despite that, I did not mark my fix 'cc:stable' because I don't know if any of those machines affected by this bad arm ABI issue could possibly care.

At least my tree hopefully now builds on them, with the BUILD_BUG_ON() that uncovered this.

Indeed the bug is ancient. I just threw in the BUILD_BUG_ON() on a whim as an extra sanity check when doing pointer arithmetics on struct edid *.

Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 2 lines

If there are affected machines, buffer overflows are the real danger due to edid->extensions indicating the number of extensions.

That is, for EDID. Makes you wonder about all the other packed structs with enum members across the kernel.

enum should not be used in structures if the layout of the struct matters. ISTR there was a proposal for EABI to make enums just about big enough to hold their enumerated constants - so you'd end up with 8-bit, 16-bit etc according to the largest enumerated value that the compiler thinks it could hold.

That's a latent disaster when enums get used in structs where the layout matters, __packed or not.

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#32 lore raw
In reply to Linus Torvalds
Quoted 3 lines · Linus Torvalds

This smells like a compiler bug triggered by "there's a 16-bit member field in that gtf2 structure, and despite it being packed and aligned to 1, we somehow still align the size to 2".

It's an age old thing, it's no compiler bug, and it's completely compliant with the C standards. Implementations are permitted by the C standard to pad structures and unions how they see fit - and some do if it makes sense for performance.

The mistake is that people forget this detail, and they expect structs and unions to be laid out a certain way - because it doesn't matter to the same extent on x86.

However, as older ARM CPUs could not do unaligned loads, ensuring that things were naturally aligned made complete sense, even if it meant that people who assume the world is x86 got tripped up - the only way around that would be to make every load very expensive.

It's not "align to size of 2" in OABI, it tends to be align to a multiple of 4, because the underlying architecture is 32-bit.

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