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author | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
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committer | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
commit | 5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2 (patch) | |
tree | cc5c2d0a898769fd59549594fedb3ee6f84e59a0 /Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst | |
download | linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.tar.gz linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.zip |
Merge tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-nextgrafted
Pull networking updates from Jakub Kicinski:
"Core:
- Add dedicated kmem_cache for typical/small skb->head, avoid having
to access struct page at kfree time, and improve memory use.
- Introduce sysctl to set default RPS configuration for new netdevs.
- Define Netlink protocol specification format which can be used to
describe messages used by each family and auto-generate parsers.
Add tools for generating kernel data structures and uAPI headers.
- Expose all net/core sysctls inside netns.
- Remove 4s sleep in netpoll if carrier is instantly detected on
boot.
- Add configurable limit of MDB entries per port, and port-vlan.
- Continue populating drop reasons throughout the stack.
- Retire a handful of legacy Qdiscs and classifiers.
Protocols:
- Support IPv4 big TCP (TSO frames larger than 64kB).
- Add IP_LOCAL_PORT_RANGE socket option, to control local port range
on socket by socket basis.
- Track and report in procfs number of MPTCP sockets used.
- Support mixing IPv4 and IPv6 flows in the in-kernel MPTCP path
manager.
- IPv6: don't check net.ipv6.route.max_size and rely on garbage
collection to free memory (similarly to IPv4).
- Support Penultimate Segment Pop (PSP) flavor in SRv6 (RFC8986).
- ICMP: add per-rate limit counters.
- Add support for user scanning requests in ieee802154.
- Remove static WEP support.
- Support minimal Wi-Fi 7 Extremely High Throughput (EHT) rate
reporting.
- WiFi 7 EHT channel puncturing support (client & AP).
BPF:
- Add a rbtree data structure following the "next-gen data structure"
precedent set by recently added linked list, that is, by using
kfunc + kptr instead of adding a new BPF map type.
- Expose XDP hints via kfuncs with initial support for RX hash and
timestamp metadata.
- Add BPF_F_NO_TUNNEL_KEY extension to bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key to
better support decap on GRE tunnel devices not operating in collect
metadata.
- Improve x86 JIT's codegen for PROBE_MEM runtime error checks.
- Remove the need for trace_printk_lock for bpf_trace_printk and
bpf_trace_vprintk helpers.
- Extend libbpf's bpf_tracing.h support for tracing arguments of
kprobes/uprobes and syscall as a special case.
- Significantly reduce the search time for module symbols by
livepatch and BPF.
- Enable cpumasks to be used as kptrs, which is useful for tracing
programs tracking which tasks end up running on which CPUs in
different time intervals.
- Add support for BPF trampoline on s390x and riscv64.
- Add capability to export the XDP features supported by the NIC.
- Add __bpf_kfunc tag for marking kernel functions as kfuncs.
- Add cgroup.memory=nobpf kernel parameter option to disable BPF
memory accounting for container environments.
Netfilter:
- Remove the CLUSTERIP target. It has been marked as obsolete for
years, and we still have WARN splats wrt races of the out-of-band
/proc interface installed by this target.
- Add 'destroy' commands to nf_tables. They are identical to the
existing 'delete' commands, but do not return an error if the
referenced object (set, chain, rule...) did not exist.
Driver API:
- Improve cpumask_local_spread() locality to help NICs set the right
IRQ affinity on AMD platforms.
- Separate C22 and C45 MDIO bus transactions more clearly.
- Introduce new DCB table to control DSCP rewrite on egress.
- Support configuration of Physical Layer Collision Avoidance (PLCA)
Reconciliation Sublayer (RS) (802.3cg-2019). Modern version of
shared medium Ethernet.
- Support for MAC Merge layer (IEEE 802.3-2018 clause 99). Allowing
preemption of low priority frames by high priority frames.
- Add support for controlling MACSec offload using netlink SET.
- Rework devlink instance refcounts to allow registration and
de-registration under the instance lock. Split the code into
multiple files, drop some of the unnecessarily granular locks and
factor out common parts of netlink operation handling.
- Add TX frame aggregation parameters (for USB drivers).
- Add a new attr TCA_EXT_WARN_MSG to report TC (offload) warning
messages with notifications for debug.
- Allow offloading of UDP NEW connections via act_ct.
- Add support for per action HW stats in TC.
- Support hardware miss to TC action (continue processing in SW from
a specific point in the action chain).
- Warn if old Wireless Extension user space interface is used with
modern cfg80211/mac80211 drivers. Do not support Wireless
Extensions for Wi-Fi 7 devices at all. Everyone should switch to
using nl80211 interface instead.
- Improve the CAN bit timing configuration. Use extack to return
error messages directly to user space, update the SJW handling,
including the definition of a new default value that will benefit
CAN-FD controllers, by increasing their oscillator tolerance.
New hardware / drivers:
- Ethernet:
- nVidia BlueField-3 support (control traffic driver)
- Ethernet support for imx93 SoCs
- Motorcomm yt8531 gigabit Ethernet PHY
- onsemi NCN26000 10BASE-T1S PHY (with support for PLCA)
- Microchip LAN8841 PHY (incl. cable diagnostics and PTP)
- Amlogic gxl MDIO mux
- WiFi:
- RealTek RTL8188EU (rtl8xxxu)
- Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 devices (ath12k)
- CAN:
- Renesas R-Car V4H
Drivers:
- Bluetooth:
- Set Per Platform Antenna Gain (PPAG) for Intel controllers.
- Ethernet NICs:
- Intel (1G, igc):
- support TSN / Qbv / packet scheduling features of i226 model
- Intel (100G, ice):
- use GNSS subsystem instead of TTY
- multi-buffer XDP support
- extend support for GPIO pins to E823 devices
- nVidia/Mellanox:
- update the shared buffer configuration on PFC commands
- implement PTP adjphase function for HW offset control
- TC support for Geneve and GRE with VF tunnel offload
- more efficient crypto key management method
- multi-port eswitch support
- Netronome/Corigine:
- add DCB IEEE support
- support IPsec offloading for NFP3800
- Freescale/NXP (enetc):
- support XDP_REDIRECT for XDP non-linear buffers
- improve reconfig, avoid link flap and waiting for idle
- support MAC Merge layer
- Other NICs:
- sfc/ef100: add basic devlink support for ef100
- ionic: rx_push mode operation (writing descriptors via MMIO)
- bnxt: use the auxiliary bus abstraction for RDMA
- r8169: disable ASPM and reset bus in case of tx timeout
- cpsw: support QSGMII mode for J721e CPSW9G
- cpts: support pulse-per-second output
- ngbe: add an mdio bus driver
- usbnet: optimize usbnet_bh() by avoiding unnecessary queuing
- r8152: handle devices with FW with NCM support
- amd-xgbe: support 10Mbps, 2.5GbE speeds and rx-adaptation
- virtio-net: support multi buffer XDP
- virtio/vsock: replace virtio_vsock_pkt with sk_buff
- tsnep: XDP support
- Ethernet high-speed switches:
- nVidia/Mellanox (mlxsw):
- add support for latency TLV (in FW control messages)
- Microchip (sparx5):
- separate explicit and implicit traffic forwarding rules, make
the implicit rules always active
- add support for egress DSCP rewrite
- IS0 VCAP support (Ingress Classification)
- IS2 VCAP filters (protos, L3 addrs, L4 ports, flags, ToS
etc.)
- ES2 VCAP support (Egress Access Control)
- support for Per-Stream Filtering and Policing (802.1Q,
8.6.5.1)
- Ethernet embedded switches:
- Marvell (mv88e6xxx):
- add MAB (port auth) offload support
- enable PTP receive for mv88e6390
- NXP (ocelot):
- support MAC Merge layer
- support for the the vsc7512 internal copper phys
- Microchip:
- lan9303: convert to PHYLINK
- lan966x: support TC flower filter statistics
- lan937x: PTP support for KSZ9563/KSZ8563 and LAN937x
- lan937x: support Credit Based Shaper configuration
- ksz9477: support Energy Efficient Ethernet
- other:
- qca8k: convert to regmap read/write API, use bulk operations
- rswitch: Improve TX timestamp accuracy
- Intel WiFi (iwlwifi):
- EHT (Wi-Fi 7) rate reporting
- STEP equalizer support: transfer some STEP (connection to radio
on platforms with integrated wifi) related parameters from the
BIOS to the firmware.
- Qualcomm 802.11ax WiFi (ath11k):
- IPQ5018 support
- Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) responder role support
- channel 177 support
- MediaTek WiFi (mt76):
- per-PHY LED support
- mt7996: EHT (Wi-Fi 7) support
- Wireless Ethernet Dispatch (WED) reset support
- switch to using page pool allocator
- RealTek WiFi (rtw89):
- support new version of Bluetooth co-existance
- Mobile:
- rmnet: support TX aggregation"
* tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-next: (1872 commits)
page_pool: add a comment explaining the fragment counter usage
net: ethtool: fix __ethtool_dev_mm_supported() implementation
ethtool: pse-pd: Fix double word in comments
xsk: add linux/vmalloc.h to xsk.c
sefltests: netdevsim: wait for devlink instance after netns removal
selftest: fib_tests: Always cleanup before exit
net/mlx5e: Align IPsec ASO result memory to be as required by hardware
net/mlx5e: TC, Set CT miss to the specific ct action instance
net/mlx5e: Rename CHAIN_TO_REG to MAPPED_OBJ_TO_REG
net/mlx5: Refactor tc miss handling to a single function
net/mlx5: Kconfig: Make tc offload depend on tc skb extension
net/sched: flower: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: flower: Move filter handle initialization earlier
net/sched: cls_api: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: Rename user cookie and act cookie
sfc: fix builds without CONFIG_RTC_LIB
sfc: clean up some inconsistent indentings
net/mlx4_en: Introduce flexible array to silence overflow warning
net: lan966x: Fix possible deadlock inside PTP
net/ulp: Remove redundant ->clone() test in inet_clone_ulp().
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst | 265 |
1 files changed, 265 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst b/Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1ee82419d --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/core-api/unaligned-memory-access.rst @@ -0,0 +1,265 @@ +========================= +Unaligned Memory Accesses +========================= + +:Author: Daniel Drake <dsd@gentoo.org>, +:Author: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> + +:With help from: Alan Cox, Avuton Olrich, Heikki Orsila, Jan Engelhardt, + Kyle McMartin, Kyle Moffett, Randy Dunlap, Robert Hancock, Uli Kunitz, + Vadim Lobanov + + +Linux runs on a wide variety of architectures which have varying behaviour +when it comes to memory access. This document presents some details about +unaligned accesses, why you need to write code that doesn't cause them, +and how to write such code! + + +The definition of an unaligned access +===================================== + +Unaligned memory accesses occur when you try to read N bytes of data starting +from an address that is not evenly divisible by N (i.e. addr % N != 0). +For example, reading 4 bytes of data from address 0x10004 is fine, but +reading 4 bytes of data from address 0x10005 would be an unaligned memory +access. + +The above may seem a little vague, as memory access can happen in different +ways. The context here is at the machine code level: certain instructions read +or write a number of bytes to or from memory (e.g. movb, movw, movl in x86 +assembly). As will become clear, it is relatively easy to spot C statements +which will compile to multiple-byte memory access instructions, namely when +dealing with types such as u16, u32 and u64. + + +Natural alignment +================= + +The rule mentioned above forms what we refer to as natural alignment: +When accessing N bytes of memory, the base memory address must be evenly +divisible by N, i.e. addr % N == 0. + +When writing code, assume the target architecture has natural alignment +requirements. + +In reality, only a few architectures require natural alignment on all sizes +of memory access. However, we must consider ALL supported architectures; +writing code that satisfies natural alignment requirements is the easiest way +to achieve full portability. + + +Why unaligned access is bad +=========================== + +The effects of performing an unaligned memory access vary from architecture +to architecture. It would be easy to write a whole document on the differences +here; a summary of the common scenarios is presented below: + + - Some architectures are able to perform unaligned memory accesses + transparently, but there is usually a significant performance cost. + - Some architectures raise processor exceptions when unaligned accesses + happen. The exception handler is able to correct the unaligned access, + at significant cost to performance. + - Some architectures raise processor exceptions when unaligned accesses + happen, but the exceptions do not contain enough information for the + unaligned access to be corrected. + - Some architectures are not capable of unaligned memory access, but will + silently perform a different memory access to the one that was requested, + resulting in a subtle code bug that is hard to detect! + +It should be obvious from the above that if your code causes unaligned +memory accesses to happen, your code will not work correctly on certain +platforms and will cause performance problems on others. + + +Code that does not cause unaligned access +========================================= + +At first, the concepts above may seem a little hard to relate to actual +coding practice. After all, you don't have a great deal of control over +memory addresses of certain variables, etc. + +Fortunately things are not too complex, as in most cases, the compiler +ensures that things will work for you. For example, take the following +structure:: + + struct foo { + u16 field1; + u32 field2; + u8 field3; + }; + +Let us assume that an instance of the above structure resides in memory +starting at address 0x10000. With a basic level of understanding, it would +not be unreasonable to expect that accessing field2 would cause an unaligned +access. You'd be expecting field2 to be located at offset 2 bytes into the +structure, i.e. address 0x10002, but that address is not evenly divisible +by 4 (remember, we're reading a 4 byte value here). + +Fortunately, the compiler understands the alignment constraints, so in the +above case it would insert 2 bytes of padding in between field1 and field2. +Therefore, for standard structure types you can always rely on the compiler +to pad structures so that accesses to fields are suitably aligned (assuming +you do not cast the field to a type of different length). + +Similarly, you can also rely on the compiler to align variables and function +parameters to a naturally aligned scheme, based on the size of the type of +the variable. + +At this point, it should be clear that accessing a single byte (u8 or char) +will never cause an unaligned access, because all memory addresses are evenly +divisible by one. + +On a related topic, with the above considerations in mind you may observe +that you could reorder the fields in the structure in order to place fields +where padding would otherwise be inserted, and hence reduce the overall +resident memory size of structure instances. The optimal layout of the +above example is:: + + struct foo { + u32 field2; + u16 field1; + u8 field3; + }; + +For a natural alignment scheme, the compiler would only have to add a single +byte of padding at the end of the structure. This padding is added in order +to satisfy alignment constraints for arrays of these structures. + +Another point worth mentioning is the use of __attribute__((packed)) on a +structure type. This GCC-specific attribute tells the compiler never to +insert any padding within structures, useful when you want to use a C struct +to represent some data that comes in a fixed arrangement 'off the wire'. + +You might be inclined to believe that usage of this attribute can easily +lead to unaligned accesses when accessing fields that do not satisfy +architectural alignment requirements. However, again, the compiler is aware +of the alignment constraints and will generate extra instructions to perform +the memory access in a way that does not cause unaligned access. Of course, +the extra instructions obviously cause a loss in performance compared to the +non-packed case, so the packed attribute should only be used when avoiding +structure padding is of importance. + + +Code that causes unaligned access +================================= + +With the above in mind, let's move onto a real life example of a function +that can cause an unaligned memory access. The following function taken +from include/linux/etherdevice.h is an optimized routine to compare two +ethernet MAC addresses for equality:: + + bool ether_addr_equal(const u8 *addr1, const u8 *addr2) + { + #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS + u32 fold = ((*(const u32 *)addr1) ^ (*(const u32 *)addr2)) | + ((*(const u16 *)(addr1 + 4)) ^ (*(const u16 *)(addr2 + 4))); + + return fold == 0; + #else + const u16 *a = (const u16 *)addr1; + const u16 *b = (const u16 *)addr2; + return ((a[0] ^ b[0]) | (a[1] ^ b[1]) | (a[2] ^ b[2])) == 0; + #endif + } + +In the above function, when the hardware has efficient unaligned access +capability, there is no issue with this code. But when the hardware isn't +able to access memory on arbitrary boundaries, the reference to a[0] causes +2 bytes (16 bits) to be read from memory starting at address addr1. + +Think about what would happen if addr1 was an odd address such as 0x10003. +(Hint: it'd be an unaligned access.) + +Despite the potential unaligned access problems with the above function, it +is included in the kernel anyway but is understood to only work normally on +16-bit-aligned addresses. It is up to the caller to ensure this alignment or +not use this function at all. This alignment-unsafe function is still useful +as it is a decent optimization for the cases when you can ensure alignment, +which is true almost all of the time in ethernet networking context. + + +Here is another example of some code that could cause unaligned accesses:: + + void myfunc(u8 *data, u32 value) + { + [...] + *((u32 *) data) = cpu_to_le32(value); + [...] + } + +This code will cause unaligned accesses every time the data parameter points +to an address that is not evenly divisible by 4. + +In summary, the 2 main scenarios where you may run into unaligned access +problems involve: + + 1. Casting variables to types of different lengths + 2. Pointer arithmetic followed by access to at least 2 bytes of data + + +Avoiding unaligned accesses +=========================== + +The easiest way to avoid unaligned access is to use the get_unaligned() and +put_unaligned() macros provided by the <asm/unaligned.h> header file. + +Going back to an earlier example of code that potentially causes unaligned +access:: + + void myfunc(u8 *data, u32 value) + { + [...] + *((u32 *) data) = cpu_to_le32(value); + [...] + } + +To avoid the unaligned memory access, you would rewrite it as follows:: + + void myfunc(u8 *data, u32 value) + { + [...] + value = cpu_to_le32(value); + put_unaligned(value, (u32 *) data); + [...] + } + +The get_unaligned() macro works similarly. Assuming 'data' is a pointer to +memory and you wish to avoid unaligned access, its usage is as follows:: + + u32 value = get_unaligned((u32 *) data); + +These macros work for memory accesses of any length (not just 32 bits as +in the examples above). Be aware that when compared to standard access of +aligned memory, using these macros to access unaligned memory can be costly in +terms of performance. + +If use of such macros is not convenient, another option is to use memcpy(), +where the source or destination (or both) are of type u8* or unsigned char*. +Due to the byte-wise nature of this operation, unaligned accesses are avoided. + + +Alignment vs. Networking +======================== + +On architectures that require aligned loads, networking requires that the IP +header is aligned on a four-byte boundary to optimise the IP stack. For +regular ethernet hardware, the constant NET_IP_ALIGN is used. On most +architectures this constant has the value 2 because the normal ethernet +header is 14 bytes long, so in order to get proper alignment one needs to +DMA to an address which can be expressed as 4*n + 2. One notable exception +here is powerpc which defines NET_IP_ALIGN to 0 because DMA to unaligned +addresses can be very expensive and dwarf the cost of unaligned loads. + +For some ethernet hardware that cannot DMA to unaligned addresses like +4*n+2 or non-ethernet hardware, this can be a problem, and it is then +required to copy the incoming frame into an aligned buffer. Because this is +unnecessary on architectures that can do unaligned accesses, the code can be +made dependent on CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS like so:: + + #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS + skb = original skb + #else + skb = copy skb + #endif |