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Linux is intended to be compatible with userspace written to Arm's
AAPCS64 procedure call standard [1,2]. For the Scalable Matrix Extension
(SME), AAPCS64 was extended with a "ZA lazy saving scheme", where SME's
ZA tile is lazily callee-saved and caller-restored. In this scheme,
TPIDR2_EL0 indicates whether the ZA tile is live or has been saved by
pointing to a "TPIDR2 block" in memory, which has a "za_save_buffer"
pointer. This scheme has been implemented in GCC and LLVM, with
necessary runtime support implemented in glibc and bionic.
AAPCS64 does not specify how the ZA lazy saving scheme is expected to
interact with thread creation mechanisms such as fork() and
pthread_create(), which would be implemented in terms of the Linux clone
syscall. The behaviour implemented by Linux and glibc/bionic doesn't
always compose safely, as explained below.
Currently the clone syscall is implemented such that PSTATE.ZA and the
ZA tile are always inherited by the new task, and TPIDR2_EL0 is
inherited unless the 'flags' argument includes CLONE_SETTLS,
in which case TPIDR2_EL0 is set to 0/NULL. This doesn't make much sense:
(a) TPIDR2_EL0 is part of the calling convention, and changes as control
is passed between functions. It is *NOT* used for thread local
storage, despite superficial similarity to TPIDR_EL0, which is is
used as the TLS register.
(b) TPIDR2_EL0 and PSTATE.ZA are tightly coupled in the procedure call
standard, and some combinations of states are illegal. In general,
manipulating the two independently is not guaranteed to be safe.
In practice, code which is compliant with the procedure call standard
may issue a clone syscall while in the "ZA dormant" state, where
PSTATE.ZA==1 and TPIDR2_EL0 is non-null and indicates that ZA needs to
be saved. This can cause a variety of problems, including:
* If the implementation of pthread_create() passes CLONE_SETTLS, the
new thread will start with PSTATE.ZA==1 and TPIDR2==NULL. Per the
procedure call standard this is not a legitimate state for most
functions. This can cause data corruption (e.g. as code may rely on
PSTATE.ZA being 0 to guarantee that an SMSTART ZA instruction will
zero the ZA tile contents), and may result in other undefined
behaviour.
* If the implementation of pthread_create() does not pass CLONE_SETTLS, the
new thread will start with PSTATE.ZA==1 and TPIDR2 pointing to a
TPIDR2 block on the parent thread's stack. This can result in a
variety of problems, e.g.
- The child may write back to the parent's za_save_buffer, corrupting
its contents.
- The child may read from the TPIDR2 block after the parent has reused
this memory for something else, and consequently the child may abort
or clobber arbitrary memory.
Ideally we'd require that userspace ensures that a task is in the "ZA
off" state (with PSTATE.ZA==0 and TPIDR2_EL0==NULL) prior to issuing a
clone syscall, and have the kernel force this state for new threads.
Unfortunately, contemporary C libraries do not do this, and simply
forcing this state within the implementation of clone would break
fork().
Instead, we can bodge around this by considering the CLONE_VM flag, and
manipulate PSTATE.ZA and TPIDR2_EL0 as a pair. CLONE_VM indicates that
the new task will run in the same address space as its parent, and in
that case it doesn't make sense to inherit a stale pointer to the
parent's TPIDR2 block:
* For fork(), CLONE_VM will not be set, and it is safe to inherit both
PSTATE.ZA and TPIDR2_EL0 as the new task will have its own copy of the
address space, and cannot clobber its parent's stack.
* For pthread_create() and vfork(), CLONE_VM will be set, and discarding
PSTATE.ZA and TPIDR2_EL0 for the new task doesn't break any existing
assumptions in userspace.
Implement this behaviour for clone(). We currently inherit PSTATE.ZA in
arch_dup_task_struct(), but this does not have access to the clone
flags, so move this logic under copy_thread(). Documentation is updated
to describe the new behaviour.
[1] https://github.com/ARM-software/abi-aa/releases/download/2025Q1/aapcs64.pdf
[2]
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Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.