Re: Adding V-ext regs to signal context w/o expanding kernel struct sigcontext to avoid glibc ABI break

[Andrew Waterman <andrew@sifive.com>]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 1:29 PM Philipp Tomsich <philipp.tomsich@vrull.eu> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2023 at 21:46, Vineet Gupta <vineetg@rivosinc.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 1/4/23 08:34, Andy Chiu wrote:
> > > Hi Vineet,
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 3:17 AM Vineet Gupta <vineetg@rivosinc.com> wrote:
> > >> The prctl support in there is really rudimentary and incomplete. There's
> > >> more work needed to use the dynamic state of enablement - for say signal
> > >> frame etc.
> > > Yes, I agree that signal and ptrace need special handling if we'd turn
> > > off Vector with prctl. For example, we may not need to save/restore
> > > vector context on context switches and signal handlings. And we may
> > > have to prevent ptrace from setting/getting vector context in such
> > > case. I can implement this into the series if this is what you're
> > > looking for.
> >
> > Perfect. This is exactly the coverage I was hoping to see. Go for it.
> >
> > >> The new Kconfig CONFIG_RISCV_VSTATE_INIT_ALL seems like a
> > >> hack bolted on top.
> > > IIUC, most opinions suggested that we should keep the default Vector
> > > state to ON in thread:
> > > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220921214439.1491510-17-stillson@rivosinc.com/T/#u
> >
> > Actually community feedback is that they *don't * want the default
> > vector state to be on due to power implications, increased stack and
> > memory usage for vector contents (in that thread and else where as
> > well). So we should keep it disabled by default, but indeed we could
> > have that Kconfig option to enable it. Granted distro kernels will keep
> > it disabled by default, this lets vendors enable it selectively until
> > the full userspace enabling bits are in place.
>
> Should we punt this to the ELF (e.g., using a RISC-V specific
> attribute) and take a per-process decision on whether to start in ON
> or OFF?
> I don't feel fully comfortable with a KCONFIG that could change and
> invalidate the assumptions a userspace process could have made…

I am supremely confident we will eventually have userspace that
unconditionally wants V (for optimized C library routines at minimum),
and that it will follow very closely on the heels of V becoming
mainstream.  So, your proposal to embed this information in the ELF
header (so that the kernel can enable V automatically on program load,
or so the dynamic loader can execute the `prctl` call on library load,
or whatever) seems more forward-looking to me than making this a
Kconfig option.

>
> Alternatively, we could establish the convention of having two stub
> libraries that set up either enabled or disable state from their
> .init_array to provide a mechanism for folks that want to make an
> explicit assumption.  Although this may try to overdesign a solution
> for a non-issue.
>
> Philipp.
>
> >
> > > So IMHO adding a build option to those who prefer not to
> > > unconditionally enable V should be sufficient.
> >
> > As above, it should be other way round.
> >
> > Thx,
> > -Vineet