Re: [uClinux-dev] About system call code in arm-uclinux, Aplio version

From: Joe deBlaquiere (jadb@redhat.com)
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 22:29:58 EST


Sure, you can make syscalls in a system thread, you just have to make
sure you have timers, interrupts and all configured (i.e. not at the .
It would probably be more appropriate to put the code into the init
thread or even better to run it as /bin/init.

Now that I look at it a little deeper, I doesn't matter what context you
came from. If you look at the SWI entry point (below), it saves off
whatever CPSR was stuffed into the SPSR at interrupt. So if you do a SWI
from SVC mode, it saves off the SVC mode PSR.

vector_swi:     sub     sp, sp, #S_FRAME_SIZE
                stmia   sp, {r0 - r12}                  @ Calling r0 - r12
                add     r8, sp, #S_PC
                stmdb   r8, {sp, lr}^                   @ Calling sp, lr
                mov     r7, r0
                mrs     r6, spsr     <<<<<<< saves whichever PSR called
                mov     r5, lr
                stmia   r8, {r5, r6, r7}                @ Save calling
PC, CPSR, OLD_R0

Looking a little father in, the ret_from_syscall routines (below) which
perform a context restore really doesn't care either.

Lret_no_check:  mrs     r0, cpsr                        @ disable IRQs
                orr     r0, r0, #I_BIT
                msr     cpsr, r0
                ldr     r0, [sp, #S_PSR]                @ Get calling cpsr
                msr     spsr, r0
                ldmia   sp, {r0 - lr}^                  @ Get calling r0
- lr
                mov     r0, r0
                add     sp, sp, #S_PC
                ldr     lr, [sp], #S_FRAME_SIZE - S_PC  @ Get PC and
jump over PC, PSR, OLD_R0
                movs    pc, lr



Zhu, Yaozong wrote:

> Hi Joe,
> 	To put my question in another way: can system calls( swi intructions indeed ) be called by kernel code? It seems that SWI handling code are written to service USER mode calls.  The init may run in USER mode. But clone system calls must be called from kernel mode code(in start_kernel) to make init run.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-uclinux-dev@uClinux.org
> [mailto:owner-uclinux-dev@uClinux.org]On Behalf Of Joe deBlaquiere
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 11:30 PM
> To: uclinux-dev@uClinux.org
> Subject: Re: [uClinux-dev] About system call code in arm-uclinux, Aplio
> version
> 
> 
> I'm not entirely sure about this, but I think the answer to this is that
> the kernel_thread() call creates a thread which runs as a user mode
> process (using the clone call). Therefore init() is not being run in SVC
> mode.
> 
> Zhu, Yaozong wrote:
> 
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 	It seems that start_kernel(init/main.c) runs in SVC mode.  And in start_kernel, kernel_thread(init, NULL, 0) is called which does two swi's .   My humble question is ,  when doing system calls from SVC mode, vector_swi(arch/armnommu/kernel/entry-armv.S) saves and restores USER mode registers, and _ret_from_sys_call does restore sp_SVC and spsr_SVC, but lr_SVC is lost, isn't this a problem,  or I am wrong?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> This message resent by the uclinux-dev@uclinux.org list server http://www.uClinux.org/


-- 
Joe deBlaquiere
Red Hat, Inc.
307 Wynn Drive
Huntsville AL, 35805
voice : (256)-704-9200
fax   : (256)-837-3839

This message resent by the uclinux-dev@uclinux.org list server http://www.uClinux.org/


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Sep 19 2002 - 13:19:27 EDT