x86/mm: Disallow running with 32-bit PTEs to work around erratum

The Intel(R) Xeon Phi(TM) Processor x200 Family (codename: Knights
Landing) has an erratum where a processor thread setting the Accessed
or Dirty bits may not do so atomically against its checks for the
Present bit.  This may cause a thread (which is about to page fault)
to set A and/or D, even though the Present bit had already been
atomically cleared.

These bits are truly "stray".  In the case of the Dirty bit, the
thread associated with the stray set was *not* allowed to write to
the page.  This means that we do not have to launder the bit(s); we
can simply ignore them.

If the PTE is used for storing a swap index or a NUMA migration index,
the A bit could be misinterpreted as part of the swap type.  The stray
bits being set cause a software-cleared PTE to be interpreted as a
swap entry.  In some cases (like when the swap index ends up being
for a non-existent swapfile), the kernel detects the stray value
and WARN()s about it, but there is no guarantee that the kernel can
always detect it.

When we have 64-bit PTEs (64-bit mode or 32-bit PAE), we were able
to move the swap PTE format around to avoid these troublesome bits.
But, 32-bit non-PAE is tight on bits.  So, disallow it from running
on this hardware.  I can't imagine anyone wanting to run 32-bit
non-highmem kernels on this hardware, but disallowing them from
running entirely is surely the safe thing to do.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave@sr71.net>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@suse.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@hp.com>
Cc: dave.hansen@intel.com
Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org
Cc: mhocko@suse.com
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160708001914.D0B50110@viggo.jf.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 33 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/arch/x86/boot/cpucheck.c b/arch/x86/boot/cpucheck.c
index 1fd7d575092e..4ad7d70e8739 100644
--- a/arch/x86/boot/cpucheck.c
+++ b/arch/x86/boot/cpucheck.c
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
 # include "boot.h"
 #endif
 #include <linux/types.h>
+#include <asm/intel-family.h>
 #include <asm/processor-flags.h>
 #include <asm/required-features.h>
 #include <asm/msr-index.h>
@@ -175,6 +176,8 @@ int check_cpu(int *cpu_level_ptr, int *req_level_ptr, u32 **err_flags_ptr)
 			puts("WARNING: PAE disabled. Use parameter 'forcepae' to enable at your own risk!\n");
 		}
 	}
+	if (!err)
+		err = check_knl_erratum();
 
 	if (err_flags_ptr)
 		*err_flags_ptr = err ? err_flags : NULL;
@@ -185,3 +188,33 @@ int check_cpu(int *cpu_level_ptr, int *req_level_ptr, u32 **err_flags_ptr)
 
 	return (cpu.level < req_level || err) ? -1 : 0;
 }
+
+int check_knl_erratum(void)
+{
+	/*
+	 * First check for the affected model/family:
+	 */
+	if (!is_intel() ||
+	    cpu.family != 6 ||
+	    cpu.model != INTEL_FAM6_XEON_PHI_KNL)
+		return 0;
+
+	/*
+	 * This erratum affects the Accessed/Dirty bits, and can
+	 * cause stray bits to be set in !Present PTEs.  We have
+	 * enough bits in our 64-bit PTEs (which we have on real
+	 * 64-bit mode or PAE) to avoid using these troublesome
+	 * bits.  But, we do not have enough space in our 32-bit
+	 * PTEs.  So, refuse to run on 32-bit non-PAE kernels.
+	 */
+	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_X86_64) || IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_X86_PAE))
+		return 0;
+
+	puts("This 32-bit kernel can not run on this Xeon Phi x200\n"
+	     "processor due to a processor erratum.  Use a 64-bit\n"
+	     "kernel, or enable PAE in this 32-bit kernel.\n\n");
+
+	return -1;
+}
+
+