linux-imx

ARM: 8331/1: VDSO initialization, mapping, and synchronization

Initialize the VDSO page list at boot, install the VDSO mapping at
exec time, and update the data page during timer ticks.  This code is
not built if CONFIG_VDSO is not enabled.

Account for the VDSO length when randomizing the offset from the
stack.  The [vdso] and [vvar] pages are placed immediately following
the sigpage with separate _install_special_mapping calls.

We want to "penalize" systems lacking the arch timer as little
as possible.  Previous versions of this code installed the VDSO
unconditionally and unmodified, making it a measurably slower way for
glibc to invoke the real syscalls on such systems.  E.g. calling
gettimeofday via glibc goes from ~560ns to ~630ns on i.MX6Q.

If we can indicate to glibc that the time-related APIs in the VDSO are
not accelerated, glibc can continue to invoke the syscalls directly
instead of dispatching through the VDSO only to fall back to the slow
path.

Thus, if the architected timer is unusable for whatever reason, patch
the VDSO at boot time so that symbol lookups for gettimeofday and
clock_gettime return NULL.  (This is similar to what powerpc does and
borrows code from there.)  This allows glibc to perform the syscall
directly instead of passing control to the VDSO, which minimizes the
penalty.  In my measurements the time taken for a gettimeofday call
via glibc goes from ~560ns to ~580ns (again on i.MX6Q), and this is
solely due to adding a test and branch to glibc's gettimeofday syscall
wrapper.

An alternative to patching the VDSO at boot would be to not install
the VDSO at all when the arch timer isn't usable.  Another alternative
is to include a separate "dummy" vdso.so without gettimeofday and
clock_gettime, which would be selected at boot time.  Either of these
would get cumbersome if the VDSO were to gain support for an API such
as getcpu which is unrelated to arch timer support.

Signed-off-by: Nathan Lynch <nathan_lynch@mentor.com>
Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@arm.linux.org.uk>