What is "isra" in the kernel thread dump - linux-kernel

Linux kernel call stack dump often includes function names that ends with ".isra.NNN" where NNN is some numbers. For example, see here and here.
What does that mean, what does the number signify?

isra is the suffix added to the function name when gcc option -fipa-sra compiler optimization being carried out.
From gcc manual:
-fipa-sra
Perform interprocedural scalar replacement of aggregates, removal of unused
parameters and replacement of parameters passed by reference by parameters passed
by value.
Enabled at levels -O2, -O3 and -Os.
All functions that are optimized under this option have isra appended to their names. I digged into gcc code and found out the function that was appending the string.
tree
clone_function_name (tree decl, const char *suffix)
{
tree name = DECL_ASSEMBLER_NAME (decl);
size_t len = IDENTIFIER_LENGTH (name);
char *tmp_name, *prefix;
prefix = XALLOCAVEC (char, len + strlen (suffix) + 2);
memcpy (prefix, IDENTIFIER_POINTER (name), len);
strcpy (prefix + len + 1, suffix);
#ifndef NO_DOT_IN_LABEL
prefix[len] = '.';
#elif !defined NO_DOLLAR_IN_LABEL
prefix[len] = '$';
#else
prefix[len] = '_';
#endif
ASM_FORMAT_PRIVATE_NAME (tmp_name, prefix, clone_fn_id_num++);
return get_identifier (tmp_name);
}
Here, argument 2, const char *suffix, is "isra" and notice at the bottom of the function macro ASM_FORMAT_PRIVATE_NAME which takes clone_fn_id_num++ as its 3rd argument. This is the arbitrary number found after "isra". This going by its name is the count of functions that are cloned under this compiler option (or may be a global counter that keeps track of all cloned functions).
If you want to understand more, search for modify_function in file gcc/tree-sra.c which in turn calls cgraph_function_versioning() which passes "isra" as its last argument.

Related

What is causing this error: SSE register return with SSE disabled?

I'm new to kernel development, and I need to write a Linux kernel module that performs several matrix multiplications (I'm working on an x64_64 platform). I'm trying to use fixed-point values for these operations, however during compilation, the compiler encounters this error:
error: SSE register return with SSE disabled
I don't know that much about SSE or this issue in particular, but from what i've found and according to most answers to questions about this problem, it is related to the usage of Floating-Point (FP) arithmetic in kernel space, which seems to be rarely a good idea (hence the utilization of Fixed-Point arithmetics). This error seems weird to me because I'm pretty sure I'm not using any FP values or operations, however it keeps popping up and in some ways that seem weird to me. For instance, I have this block of code:
#include <linux/init.h>
#include <linux/kernel.h>
#include <linux/module.h>
const int scale = 16;
#define DOUBLE_TO_FIXED(x) ((x) * (1 << scale))
#define FIXED_TO_DOUBLE(x) ((x) / (1 << scale))
#define MULT(x, y) ((((x) >> 8) * ((y) >> 8)) >> 0)
#define DIV(x, y) (((x) << 8) / (y) << 8)
#define OUTPUT_ROWS 6
#define OUTPUT_COLUMNS 2
struct matrix {
int rows;
int cols;
double *data;
};
double outputlayer_weights[OUTPUT_ROWS * OUTPUT_COLUMNS] =
{
0.7977986, -0.77172316,
-0.43078753, 0.67738613,
-1.04312621, 1.0552227 ,
-0.32619684, 0.14119884,
-0.72325027, 0.64673559,
0.58467862, -0.06229197
};
...
void matmul (struct matrix *A, struct matrix *B, struct matrix *C) {
int i, j, k, a, b, sum, fixed_prod;
if (A->cols != B->rows) {
return;
}
for (i = 0; i < A->rows; i++) {
for (j = 0; j < B->cols; j++) {
sum = 0;
for (k = 0; k < A->cols; k++) {
a = DOUBLE_TO_FIXED(A->data[i * A->rows + k]);
b = DOUBLE_TO_FIXED(B->data[k * B->rows + j]);
fixed_prod = MULT(a, b);
sum += fixed_prod;
}
/* Commented the following line, causes error */
//C->data[i * C->rows + j] = sum;
}
}
}
...
static int __init insert_matmul_init (void)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "INSERTING MATMUL");
return 0;
}
static void __exit insert_matmul_exit (void)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "REMOVING MATMUL");
}
module_init (insert_matmul_init);
module_exit (insert_matmul_exit);
which compiles with no errors (I left out code that I found irrelevant to the problem). I have made sure to comment any error-prone lines to get to a point where the program can be compiled with no errors, and I am trying to solve each of them one by one. However, when uncommenting this line:
C->data[i * C->rows + j] = sum;
I get this error message in a previous (unmodified) line of code:
error: SSE register return with SSE disabled
sum += fixed_prod;
~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~
From what I understand, there are no FP operations taking place, at least in this section, so I need help figuring out what might be causing this error. Maybe my fixed-point implementation is flawed (I'm no expert in that matter either), or maybe I'm missing something obvious. Just in case, I have tested the same logic in a user-space program (using Floating-Point values) and it seems to work fine. In either case, any help in solving this issue would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Edit: I have included the definition of matrix and an example matrix. I have been using the default kbuild command for building external modules, here is what my Makefile looks like:
obj-m = matrix_mult.o
KVERSION = $(shell uname -r)
all:
make -C /lib/modules/$(KVERSION)/build M=$(PWD) modules
Linux compiles kernel code with -mgeneral-regs-only on x86, which produces this error in functions that do anything with FP or SIMD. (Except via inline asm, because then the compiler doesn't see the FP instructions, only the assembler does.)
From what I understand, there are no FP operations taking place, at least in this section, so I need help figuring out what might be causing this error.
GCC optimizes whole functions when optimization is enabled, and you are using FP inside that function. You're doing FP multiply and truncating conversion to integer with your macro and assigning the result to an int, since the MCVE you eventually provided shows struct matrix containing double *data.
If you stop the compiler from using FP instructions (like Linux does by building with -mgeneral-regs-only), it refuses to compile your file instead of doing software floating-point.
The only odd thing is that it pins down the error to an integer += instead of one of the statements that compiles to a mulsd and cvttsd2si
If you disable optimization (-O0 -mgeneral-regs-only) you get a more obvious location for the same error (https://godbolt.org/z/Tv5nG6nd4):
<source>: In function 'void matmul(matrix*, matrix*, matrix*)':
<source>:9:33: error: SSE register return with SSE disabled
9 | #define DOUBLE_TO_FIXED(x) ((x) * (1 << scale))
| ~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<source>:46:21: note: in expansion of macro 'DOUBLE_TO_FIXED'
46 | a = DOUBLE_TO_FIXED(A->data[i * A->rows + k]);
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you really want to know what's going on with the GCC internals, you could dig into it with -fdump-tree-... options, e.g. on the Godbolt compiler explorer there's a dropdown for GCC Tree / RTL output that would let you look at the GIMPLE or RTL internal representation of your function's logic after various analyzer passes.
But if you just want to know whether there's a way to make this function work, no obviously not, unless you compile a file without -mgeneral-registers-only. All functions in a file compiled that way must only be called by callers that have used kernel_fpu_begin() before the call. (and kernel_fpu_end after).
You can't safely use kernel_fpu_begin inside a function compiled to allow it to use SSE / x87 registers; it might already have corrupted user-space FPU state before calling the function, after optimization. The symptom of getting this wrong is not a fault, it's corrupting user-space state, so don't assume that happens to work = correct. Also, depending on how GCC optimizes, the code-gen might be fine with your version, but might be broken with earlier or later GCC or clang versions. I somewhat expect that kernel_fpu_begin() at the top of this function would get called before the compiler did anything with FP instructions, but that doesn't mean it would be safe and correct.
See also Generate and optimize FP / SIMD code in the Linux Kernel on files which contains kernel_fpu_begin()?
Apparently -msse2 overrides -mgeneral-regs-only, so that's probably just an alias for -mno-mmx -mno-sse and whatever options disables x87. So you might be able to use __attribute__((target("sse2"))) on a function without changing build options for it, but that would be x86-specific. Of course, so is -mgeneral-regs-only. And there isn't a -mno-general-regs-only option to override the kernel's normal CFLAGS.
I don't have a specific suggestion for the best way to set up a build option if you really do think it's worth using kernel_fpu_begin at all, here (rather than using fixed-point the whole way through).
Obviously if you do save/restore the FPU state, you might as well use it for the loop instead of using FP to convert to fixed-point and back.

How to let gcc actually allocate variables instead substituting with symbols?

I noticed that if I have variables defined as char a = 'a'; or char a; a = 'a'; or even char a; a = 'a'; a = 'b';, and I try to do print a in gdb, it tells me No symbol "a" in current context.. Apparently gcc, during compilation, optimizes a to be a character constant, instead of a char variable holding a certain value.
How do I tell gcc not to do this trick, but really treat a as a variable (allocate memory and assign the character value to its memory)?

How do memory operands work in avr-gcc inline assembly?

I'm trying to write a custom memory-copy function for AVR as inline assembly, because avr-gcc will always use a loop for memcpy and struct assignment, which is inefficient in terms of time. I want to use memory operands to avoid having to add a "memory" clobber. I currently have this:
void copy_2_bytes (char *restrict dst, char *restrict src)
{
struct S {
char x[2];
};
__asm__(
" ld __tmp_reg__,%[src]+\n"
" st %[dst]+,__tmp_reg__\n"
" ld __tmp_reg__,%[src]+\n"
" st %[dst]+,__tmp_reg__\n"
: [dst] "=m" ( *(struct S *)dst )
: [src] "m" ( *(struct S *)src )
);
}
This compiles, but it's incorrect in general because it modifies the pointer register pairs corresponding to the memory operands. It's easy to see that gcc assumes that the registers stay unchanged, for example by adding "*dst = 0;" after the assembly.
On the other hand, the Y and Z registers support the "ldd" and "std" instructions, which also take an immediate offset, so they can be used to access multiple bytes without being modified. But then there doesn't seem to be a way to force gcc to not select the X register, which doesn't support that.
UPDATE
Actually, if gcc determines that the address of the memory operand is constant, it will pass the constant address into the assembly, instead of a register pair. So now, I have absolutely no idea how to deal with this. Are there some magic instructions or assembly macros which can deal with both pointer registers and constant addresses at the same time?

How to use arrays in program (global) scope in OpenCL

AMD OpenCL Programming Guide, Section 6.3 Constant Memory Optimization:
Globally scoped constant arrays. These arrays are initialized,
globally scoped, and in the constant address space (as specified in
section 6.5.3 of the OpenCL specification). If the size of an array is
below 64 kB, it is placed in hardware constant buffers; otherwise, it
uses global memory. An example of this is a lookup table for math
functions.
I want to use this "globally scoped constant array". I have such code in pure C
#define SIZE 101
int *reciprocal_table;
int reciprocal(int number){
return reciprocal_table[number];
}
void kernel(int *output)
{
for(int i=0; i < SIZE; i+)
output[i] = reciprocal(i);
}
I want to port it into OpenCL
__kernel void kernel(__global int *output){
int gid = get_global_id(0);
output[gid] = reciprocal(gid);
}
int reciprocal(int number){
return reciprocal_table[number];
}
What should I do with global variable reciprocal_table? If I try to add __global or __constant to it I get an error:
global variable must be declared in addrSpace constant
I don't want to pass __constant int *reciprocal_table from kernel to reciprocal. Is it possible to initialize global variable somehow? I know that I can write it down into code, but does other way exist?
P.S. I'm using AMD OpenCL
UPD Above code is just an example. I have real much more complex code with a lot of functions. So I want to make array in program scope to use it in all functions.
UPD2 Changed example code and added citation from Programming Guide
#define SIZE 2
int constant array[SIZE] = {0, 1};
kernel void
foo (global int* input,
global int* output)
{
const uint id = get_global_id (0);
output[id] = input[id] + array[id];
}
I can get the above to compile with Intel as well as AMD. It also works without the initialization of the array but then you would not know what's in the array and since it's in the constant address space, you could not assign any values.
Program global variables have to be in the __constant address space, as stated by section 6.5.3 in the standard.
UPDATE Now, that I fully understood the question:
One thing that worked for me is to define the array in the constant space and then overwrite it by passing a kernel parameter constant int* array which overwrites the array.
That produced correct results only on the GPU Device. The AMD CPU Device and the Intel CPU Device did not overwrite the arrays address. It also is probably not compliant to the standard.
Here's how it looks:
#define SIZE 2
int constant foo[SIZE] = {100, 100};
int
baz (int i)
{
return foo[i];
}
kernel void
bar (global int* input,
global int* output,
constant int* foo)
{
const uint id = get_global_id (0);
output[id] = input[id] + baz (id);
}
For input = {2, 3} and foo = {0, 1} this produces {2, 4} on my HD 7850 Device (Ubuntu 12.10, Catalyst 9.0.2). But on the CPU I get {102, 103} with either OCL Implementation (AMD, Intel). So I can not stress, how much I personally would NOT do this, because it's only a matter of time, before this breaks.
Another way to achieve this is would be to compute .h files with the host during runtime with the definition of the array (or predefine them) and pass them to the kernel upon compilation via a compiler option. This, of course, requires recompilation of the clProgram/clKernel for every different LUT.
I struggled to get this work in my own program some time ago.
I did not find any way to initialize a constant or global scope array from the host via some clEnqueueWriteBuffer or so. The only way is to write it explicitely in your .cl source file.
So here my trick to initialize it from the host is to use the fact that you are actually compiling your source from the host, which also means you can alter your src.cl file before compiling it.
First my src.cl file reads:
__constant double lookup[SIZE] = { LOOKUP }; // precomputed table (in constant memory).
double func(int idx) {
return(lookup[idx])
}
__kernel void ker1(__global double *in, __global double *out)
{
... do something ...
double t = func(i)
...
}
notice the lookup table is initialized with LOOKUP.
Then, in the host program, before compiling your OpenCL code:
compute the values of my lookup table in host_values[]
on your host, run something like:
char *buf = (char*) malloc( 10000 );
int count = sprintf(buf, "#define LOOKUP "); // actual source generation !
for (int i=0;i<SIZE;i++) count += sprintf(buf+count, "%g, ",host_values[i]);
count += sprintf(buf+count,"\n");
then read the content of your source file src.cl and place it right at buf+count.
you now have a source file with an explicitely defined lookup table that you just computed from the host.
compile your buffer with something like clCreateProgramWithSource(context, 1, (const char **) &buf, &src_sz, err);
voilĂ  !
It looks like "array" is a look-up table of sorts. You'll need to clCreateBuffer and clEnqueueWriteBuffer so the GPU has a copy of it to use.

How to find the address & length of a C++ function at runtime (MinGW)

As this is my first post to stackoverflow I want to thank you all for your valuable posts that helped me a lot in the past.
I use MinGW (gcc 4.4.0) on Windows-7(64) - more specifically I use Nokia Qt + MinGW but Qt is not involved in my Question.
I need to find the address and -more important- the length of specific functions of my application at runtime, in order to encode/decode these functions and implement a software protection system.
I already found a solution on how to compute the length of a function, by assuming that static functions placed one after each other in a source-file, it is logical to be also sequentially placed in the compiled object file and subsequently in memory.
Unfortunately this is true only if the whole CPP file is compiled with option: "g++ -O0" (optimization level = 0).
If I compile it with "g++ -O2" (which is the default for my project) the compiler seems to relocate some of the functions and as a result the computed function length seems to be both incorrect and negative(!).
This is happening even if I put a "#pragma GCC optimize 0" line in the source file,
which is supposed to be the equivalent of a "g++ -O0" command line option.
I suppose that "g++ -O2" instructs the compiler to perform some global file-level optimization (some function relocation?) which is not avoided by using the #pragma directive.
Do you have any idea how to prevent this, without having to compile the whole file with -O0 option?
OR: Do you know of any other method to find the length of a function at runtime?
I prepare a small example for you, and the results with different compilation options, to highlight the case.
The Source:
// ===================================================================
// test.cpp
//
// Intention: To find the addr and length of a function at runtime
// Problem: The application output is correct when compiled with: "g++ -O0"
// but it's erroneous when compiled with "g++ -O2"
// (although a directive "#pragma GCC optimize 0" is present)
// ===================================================================
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#pragma GCC optimize 0
static int test_01(int p1)
{
putchar('a');
putchar('\n');
return 1;
}
static int test_02(int p1)
{
putchar('b');
putchar('b');
putchar('\n');
return 2;
}
static int test_03(int p1)
{
putchar('c');
putchar('\n');
return 3;
}
static int test_04(int p1)
{
putchar('d');
putchar('\n');
return 4;
}
// Print a HexDump of a specific address and length
void HexDump(void *startAddr, long len)
{
unsigned char *buf = (unsigned char *)startAddr;
printf("addr:%ld, len:%ld\n", (long )startAddr, len);
len = (long )fabs(len);
while (len)
{
printf("%02x.", *buf);
buf++;
len--;
}
printf("\n");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("======================\n");
long fun_len = (long )test_02 - (long )test_01;
HexDump((void *)test_01, fun_len);
printf("======================\n");
fun_len = (long )test_03 - (long )test_02;
HexDump((void *)test_02, fun_len);
printf("======================\n");
fun_len = (long )test_04 - (long )test_03;
HexDump((void *)test_03, fun_len);
printf("Test End\n");
getchar();
// Just a trick to block optimizer from eliminating test_xx() functions as unused
if (argc > 1)
{
test_01(1);
test_02(2);
test_03(3);
test_04(4);
}
}
The (correct) Output when compiled with "g++ -O0":
[note the 'c3' byte (= assembly 'ret') at the end of all functions]
======================
addr:4199344, len:37
55.89.e5.83.ec.18.c7.04.24.61.00.00.00.e8.4e.62.00.00.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.42
.62.00.00.b8.01.00.00.00.c9.c3.
======================
addr:4199381, len:49
55.89.e5.83.ec.18.c7.04.24.62.00.00.00.e8.29.62.00.00.c7.04.24.62.00.00.00.e8.1d
.62.00.00.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.11.62.00.00.b8.02.00.00.00.c9.c3.
======================
addr:4199430, len:37
55.89.e5.83.ec.18.c7.04.24.63.00.00.00.e8.f8.61.00.00.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.ec
.61.00.00.b8.03.00.00.00.c9.c3.
Test End
The erroneous Output when compiled with "g++ -O2":
(a) function test_01 addr & len seem correct
(b) functions test_02, test_03 have negative lengths,
and fun. test_02 length is also incorrect.
======================
addr:4199416, len:36
83.ec.1c.c7.04.24.61.00.00.00.e8.c5.61.00.00.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.b9.61.00.00
.b8.01.00.00.00.83.c4.1c.c3.
======================
addr:4199452, len:-72
83.ec.1c.c7.04.24.62.00.00.00.e8.a1.61.00.00.c7.04.24.62.00.00.00.e8.95.61.00.00
.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.89.61.00.00.b8.02.00.00.00.83.c4.1c.c3.57.56.53.83.ec.2
0.8b.5c.24.34.8b.7c.24.30.89.5c.24.08.89.7c.24.04.c7.04.
======================
addr:4199380, len:-36
83.ec.1c.c7.04.24.63.00.00.00.e8.e9.61.00.00.c7.04.24.0a.00.00.00.e8.dd.61.00.00
.b8.03.00.00.00.83.c4.1c.c3.
Test End
This is happening even if I put a "#pragma GCC optimize 0" line in the source file, which is supposed to be the equivalent of a "g++ -O0" command line option.
I don't believe this is true: it is supposed to be the equivalent of attaching __attribute__((optimize(0))) to subsequently defined functions, which causes those functions to be compiled with a different optimisation level. But this does not affect what goes on at the top level, whereas the command line option does.
If you really must do horrible things that rely on top level ordering, try the -fno-toplevel-reorder option. And I suspect that it would be a good idea to add __attribute__((noinline)) to the functions in question as well.

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