Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 21 May 2005 21:35:13 -0700
From:      Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org>
To:        Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@xcllnt.net>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Scheduler fixes for hyperthreading
Message-ID:  <42900C01.10904@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <6451b639f2e0ddacb18f62c571dfeedb@xcllnt.net>
References:  <428FC00B.3080909@freebsd.org> <aef05e1ae6104223181ad3cf03e11390@xcllnt.net> <428FD710.4060200@freebsd.org> <9e8314b53980a379445cc8c07086901d@xcllnt.net> <428FE788.8020408@freebsd.org> <6451b639f2e0ddacb18f62c571dfeedb@xcllnt.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
> There are a lot of variables that need to be taken into account and
> those variables do not necessarily map perfectly from a P4 to an I2.
> Sharing of the L1 cache is not a sufficient condition to create a
> side-channel for timing attacks. A reliable time source with enough
> precision is also necessary (as you and Stephan have pointed out).
> The precision of the time source depends on latencies of the various
> cache levels and the micro-architectural behavior of the processor.

Point taken.  I maintain, however, that it is much better to make
"information can leak between these processors" a machine-independent
concept which is handled appropriately by the scheduler (with the
necessary machine-dependent code to specify *which* sets of processors,
if any, have such leakage).

Colin Percival



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?42900C01.10904>