• David Woodhouse's avatar
    [PATCH] syscall entry/exit revamp · 401d1f02
    David Woodhouse authored
    This cleanup patch speeds up the null syscall path on ppc64 by about 3%,
    and brings the ppc32 and ppc64 code slightly closer together.
    
    The ppc64 code was checking current_thread_info()->flags twice in the
    syscall exit path; once for TIF_SYSCALL_T_OR_A before disabling
    interrupts, and then again for TIF_SIGPENDING|TIF_NEED_RESCHED etc after
    disabling interrupts. Now we do the same as ppc32 -- check the flags
    only once in the fast path, and re-enable interrupts if necessary in the
    ptrace case.
    
    The patch abolishes the 'syscall_noerror' member of struct thread_info
    and replaces it with a TIF_NOERROR bit in the flags, which is handled in
    the slow path. This shortens the syscall entry code, which no longer
    needs to clear syscall_noerror.
    
    The patch adds a TIF_SAVE_NVGPRS flag which causes the syscall exit slow
    path to save the non-volatile GPRs into a signal frame. This removes the
    need for the assembly wrappers around sys_sigsuspend(),
    sys_rt_sigsuspend(), et al which existed solely to save those registers
    in advance. It also means I don't have to add new wrappers for ppoll()
    and pselect(), which is what I was supposed to be doing when I got
    distracted into this...
    
    Finally, it unifies the ppc64 and ppc32 methods of handling syscall exit
    directly into a signal handler (as required by sigsuspend et al) by
    introducing a TIF_RESTOREALL flag which causes _all_ the registers to be
    reloaded from the pt_regs by taking the ret_from_exception path, instead
    of the normal syscall exit path which stomps on the callee-saved GPRs.
    
    It appears to pass an LTP test run on ppc64, and passes basic testing on
    ppc32 too. Brief tests of ptrace functionality with strace and gdb also
    appear OK. I wouldn't send it to Linus for 2.6.15 just yet though :)
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDavid Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
    401d1f02
systbl.S 7.37 KB