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Re: glibc clears AT_HWCAP and set only HW_CAP_X86_64 (0x2)


On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 1:31 PM Baojun Wang <wangbj@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, the values read from /proc/self/auxv is different (Linux x86_64,
> glibc-2.27, tried glibc HEAD without any difference) with
> getauxval(AT_HWCAP).
>
> Here is the program I wrote for testing:
>
> https://gist.github.com/wangbj/658da547437fe9b7eff2113cc9fc9741
>
> And here is the output (check AT_HWCAP):
>
> $ ./features
>
>          AT_BASE: getauxval = 0x7f861434a000    , proc_getauxval =
> 0x7f861434a000
>
>         AT_ENTRY: getauxval = 0x4005c0          , proc_getauxval =
> 0x4005c0
>
>         AT_HWCAP: getauxval = 0x2               , proc_getauxval =
> 0xbfebfbff
>
> Best Regards,
> baojun
>
> On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 4:26 PM Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/17/19 11:29 AM, Baojun Wang wrote:
> > > Hi libc,
> > >
> > > when calling getauxval(AT_HWCAP), it returns 0x2, because of below snippet:
> > >
> > > https://code.woboq.org/userspace/glibc/sysdeps/x86/cpu-features.c.html#510
> > >
> > > Is there any reason why glibc don't use the values passed from kernel auxv?
> >
> > I don't know of any good reason.
> >
> > The semantics of getauxval() is to provide the auxiliary vector data.
> >
> > In this case glibc *does* read AT_HWCAP, but then for x86 it overrides it
> > with a computed value based on cpuid.
> >
> > HJ, Is there any reason we do this?

dl_hwcap is used to load DSO optimized for a platform.  On i386, we use
AT_HWCAP passed from kernel.  On x86-64, we use a different approach
since AT_HWCAP passed from kernel isn't very useful:

commit 1432d38ea04ab5e96f21a382101856db5b49ad8a
Author: H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed May 3 13:42:42 2017 -0700

    x86: Set dl_platform and dl_hwcap from CPU features [BZ #21391]

    dl_platform and dl_hwcap are set from AT_PLATFORM and AT_HWCAP very
    early during startup.  They are used by dynamic linker to determine
    platform and build an array of hardware capability names, which are
    added to search path when loading shared object.  dl_platform and
    dl_hwcap are unused on x86-64.  On i386, i386, i486, i586 and i686
    platforms were supported and only SSE2 capability was used.

    On x86, usage of AT_PLATFORM and AT_HWCAP to determine platform and
    processor capabilities is obsolete since all information is available
    in dl_x86_cpu_features.  This patch sets dl_platform and dl_hwcap from
    dl_x86_cpu_features in dynamic linker.  On i386, the available plaforms
    are changed to i586 and i686 since i386 has been deprecated.  On x86-64,
    the available plaforms are haswell, which is for Haswell class processors
    with BMI1, BMI2, LZCNT, MOVBE, POPCNT, AVX2 and FMA, and xeon_phi, which
    is for Xeon Phi class processors with AVX512F, AVX512CD, AVX512ER and
    AVX512PF.  A capability, avx512_1, is also added to x86-64 for AVX512
    ISAs: AVX512F, AVX512CD, AVX512BW, AVX512DQ and AVX512VL.

and

commit 45ff34638f034877b6a490c217d6a0632ce263f4
Author: H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon Sep 11 08:18:11 2017 -0700

    x86: Add x86_64 to x86-64 HWCAP [BZ #22093]

    Before glibc 2.26, ld.so set dl_platform to "x86_64" and searched the
    "x86_64" subdirectory when loading a shared library.  ld.so in glibc
    2.26 was changed to set dl_platform to "haswell" or "xeon_phi", based
    on supported ISAs.  This led to shared library loading failure for
    shared libraries placed under the "x86_64" subdirectory.

    This patch adds "x86_64" to x86-64 dl_hwcap so that ld.so will always
    search the "x86_64" subdirectory when loading a shared library.

    NB: We can't set x86-64 dl_platform to "x86-64" since ld.so will skip
    the "haswell" and "xeon_phi" subdirectories on "haswell" and "xeon_phi"
    machines.

> > Baojun, Do you see a difference between getauxval() return and real AT_HWCAP?
> >
> > --
> > Cheers,
> > Carlos.
> >



-- 
H.J.


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