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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/powerpc')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/powerpc/transactional_memory.txt | 19 |
1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/powerpc/transactional_memory.txt b/Documentation/powerpc/transactional_memory.txt index c54bf3127651..dc23e58ae264 100644 --- a/Documentation/powerpc/transactional_memory.txt +++ b/Documentation/powerpc/transactional_memory.txt @@ -147,6 +147,25 @@ Example signal handler: fix_the_problem(ucp->dar); } +When in an active transaction that takes a signal, we need to be careful with +the stack. It's possible that the stack has moved back up after the tbegin. +The obvious case here is when the tbegin is called inside a function that +returns before a tend. In this case, the stack is part of the checkpointed +transactional memory state. If we write over this non transactionally or in +suspend, we are in trouble because if we get a tm abort, the program counter and +stack pointer will be back at the tbegin but our in memory stack won't be valid +anymore. + +To avoid this, when taking a signal in an active transaction, we need to use +the stack pointer from the checkpointed state, rather than the speculated +state. This ensures that the signal context (written tm suspended) will be +written below the stack required for the rollback. The transaction is aborted +becuase of the treclaim, so any memory written between the tbegin and the +signal will be rolled back anyway. + +For signals taken in non-TM or suspended mode, we use the +normal/non-checkpointed stack pointer. + Failure cause codes used by kernel ================================== |