The x86 architecture has quite a few different ways to jump into
kernel code. Most of these entry points are registered in
arch/x86/kernel/traps.c and implemented in arch/x86/kernel/entry_64.S
-and arch/x86/ia32/ia32entry.S.
+for 64-bit, arch/x86/kernel/entry_32.S for 32-bit and finally
+arch/x86/ia32/ia32entry.S which implements the 32-bit compatibility
+syscall entry points and thus provides for 32-bit processes the
+ability to execute syscalls when running on 64-bit kernels.
-The IDT vector assignments are listed in arch/x86/include/irq_vectors.h.
+The IDT vector assignments are listed in arch/x86/include/asm/irq_vectors.h.
Some of these entries are:
xorl %ebx,%ebx
1: ret
-and the whole paranoid non-paranoid macro complexity is about whether
-to suffer that RDMSR cost.
-
If we are at an interrupt or user-trap/gate-alike boundary then we can
use the faster check: the stack will be a reliable indicator of
whether SWAPGS was already done: if we see that we are a secondary
stack but before we executed SWAPGS, then the only safe way to check
for GS is the slower method: the RDMSR.
-So we try only to mark those entry methods 'paranoid' that absolutely
-need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we generate all
-'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) entry macros.
+Therefore, super-atomic entries (except NMI, which is handled separately)
+must use idtentry with paranoid=1 to handle gsbase correctly. This
+triggers three main behavior changes:
+
+ - Interrupt entry will use the slower gsbase check.
+ - Interrupt entry from user mode will switch off the IST stack.
+ - Interrupt exit to kernel mode will not attempt to reschedule.
+
+We try to only use IST entries and the paranoid entry code for vectors
+that absolutely need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we
+generate all 'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) paranoid=0
+variant.