Documentation/arch/x86/kernel-stacks.rst

Source file repositories/reference/linux-study-clean/Documentation/arch/x86/kernel-stacks.rst

File Facts

System
Linux kernel
Corpus path
Documentation/arch/x86/kernel-stacks.rst
Extension
.rst
Size
6675 bytes
Lines
153
Domain
Support Tooling And Documentation
Bucket
Documentation
Inferred role
Support Tooling And Documentation: documentation
Status
atlas-only

Why This File Exists

Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.

Dependency Surface

Detected Declarations

Annotated Snippet

.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

=============
Kernel Stacks
=============

Kernel stacks on x86-64 bit
===========================

Most of the text from Keith Owens, hacked by AK

x86_64 page size (PAGE_SIZE) is 4K.

Like all other architectures, x86_64 has a kernel stack for every
active thread.  These thread stacks are THREAD_SIZE (4*PAGE_SIZE) big.
These stacks contain useful data as long as a thread is alive or a
zombie. While the thread is in user space the kernel stack is empty
except for the thread_info structure at the bottom.

In addition to the per thread stacks, there are specialized stacks
associated with each CPU.  These stacks are only used while the kernel
is in control on that CPU; when a CPU returns to user space the
specialized stacks contain no useful data.  The main CPU stacks are:

* Interrupt stack.  IRQ_STACK_SIZE

  Used for external hardware interrupts.  If this is the first external
  hardware interrupt (i.e. not a nested hardware interrupt) then the
  kernel switches from the current task to the interrupt stack.  Like
  the split thread and interrupt stacks on i386, this gives more room
  for kernel interrupt processing without having to increase the size
  of every per thread stack.

  The interrupt stack is also used when processing a softirq.

Switching to the kernel interrupt stack is done by software based on a
per CPU interrupt nest counter. This is needed because x86-64 "IST"
hardware stacks cannot nest without races.

x86_64 also has a feature which is not available on i386, the ability
to automatically switch to a new stack for designated events such as
double fault or NMI, which makes it easier to handle these unusual
events on x86_64.  This feature is called the Interrupt Stack Table
(IST).  There can be up to 7 IST entries per CPU. The IST code is an
index into the Task State Segment (TSS). The IST entries in the TSS
point to dedicated stacks; each stack can be a different size.

An IST is selected by a non-zero value in the IST field of an
interrupt-gate descriptor.  When an interrupt occurs and the hardware
loads such a descriptor, the hardware automatically sets the new stack
pointer based on the IST value, then invokes the interrupt handler.  If
the interrupt came from user mode, then the interrupt handler prologue
will switch back to the per-thread stack.  If software wants to allow
nested IST interrupts then the handler must adjust the IST values on
entry to and exit from the interrupt handler.  (This is occasionally
done, e.g. for debug exceptions.)

Events with different IST codes (i.e. with different stacks) can be
nested.  For example, a debug interrupt can safely be interrupted by an
NMI.  arch/x86_64/kernel/entry.S::paranoidentry adjusts the stack
pointers on entry to and exit from all IST events, in theory allowing
IST events with the same code to be nested.  However in most cases, the
stack size allocated to an IST assumes no nesting for the same code.
If that assumption is ever broken then the stacks will become corrupt.

The currently assigned IST stacks are:

* ESTACK_DF.  EXCEPTION_STKSZ (PAGE_SIZE).

  Used for interrupt 8 - Double Fault Exception (#DF).

Annotation

Implementation Notes