Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2] tcg: Remove stack protection from helper functions

[Peter Maydell]

On 26 September 2011 12:43, Jan Kiszka <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2011-09-26 13:33, Peter Maydell wrote:
>> On 26 September 2011 11:51, Jan Kiszka <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> This increases the overhead of frequently executed helpers. We need to
>>> move rule past QEMU_CFLAGS assignment to ensure that the required simple
>>> assignment picks up all bits. The signal workaround is moved just for
>>> the sake of consistency.
>>
>>> +# NOTE: Must be after the last QEMU_CFLAGS assignment
>>> +op_helper.o user-exec.o: QEMU_CFLAGS := $(subst 
>>> -fstack-protector-all,,$(QEMU_CFLAGS)) $(HELPER_CFLAGS)
>>
>> Why also user-exec.o ?
>
> That's a good question. It doesn't look like it's deserving this.
>
>> Why not the other source files with helpers in?
>
> Name them and I add them.

target-*/*helper.c ?

But mostly I think what I'm trying to say is that this is making
a tradeoff between safety and speed, so it ought to come with a
rationale for why it is OK to remove the safety checks for these
files. Given that rationale you can identify other files that are
also safe/worthwhile to flip the flag for.

>> (Or to not
>> have -fstack-protector-all globally?)
>
> Opt-in instead of opt-out, that might be some approach, though I bet the
> out-out set still bets the opt-in crowed by some orders of magnitude.

Have you looked at whether using plain -fstack-protector for all files
(rather than the -all version) helps? Presumably we had some reason for
picking the -all version though...

-- PMM