Created attachment 41591 [details] C source file If the attached C source file is cross-compiled using GCC 4.9.4 for AM335x CPU (BeagleBone) then segmentation fault occurs. Command line to compile: gcc -O2 -fPIC -march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a8 -mfloat-abi=softfp -mfpu=vfpv3 -mtls-dialect=gnu crash.c The array size in the first function is key to causing an error.
Created attachment 41592 [details] Preprocessed source file
Created attachment 41593 [details] Output of gcc -v
This could be a glibc, binutils or gcc issue. You have more than one page of TLS variables here. I don't remember the limits but it might be you are hitting that limit.
Also GCC 4.9 is no longer supported.
I was able to reproduce this bug with GCC 5.4.0 and 6.3.0. GCC 7.1.0 generates slightly different assembler code and I have not been able to trigger this bug yet.
Created attachment 41595 [details] C source file without snprintf
I attached another C source file that is even simpler. Compiled program causes segmentation fault on AM335X (Cortex-A8) as well as on SPEAr320S-2 (ARM926EJ-S). Using option -ftls-model=initial-exec or -mtls-dialect=gnu2 leads to generating different assembler code that do not cause segmentation fault.
Conditions for reproducing the bug: - ARM architecture - O1 or better optimalization - TLS model global-dynamic or local-dynamic - TLS dialect gnu - at least two static thread local variables while the first is larger than page size If all these conditions are met then address of the second variable seems to be miscalculated (difference of addresses is much larger than size of the first variable).
(In reply to tomas_paukrt from comment #0) > Created attachment 41591 [details] > C source file > > If the attached C source file is cross-compiled using GCC 4.9.4 for AM335x > CPU (BeagleBone) then segmentation fault occurs. > > Command line to compile: gcc -O2 -fPIC -march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a8 > -mfloat-abi=softfp -mfpu=vfpv3 -mtls-dialect=gnu crash.c > I'm not sure that you can expect executables created with -fPIC to work properly with TLS . What happens if you use -fPIE since that is designed to create executables that are position independent and would do the right thing as far as various initializations go ? Or is this a crash you've observed in a shared library and has been reduced to a testcase in this form ? regards Ramana
> What happens if you use -fPIE since that is designed to create executables > that are position independent and would do the right thing as far as various > initializations go ? It does not crash, because TLS model initial-exec or local-exec seems to be used in this case. > Or is this a crash you've observed in a shared library and has been reduced > to a testcase in this form ? Yes, crash was observed in a shared library with static thread local variables. Best regards Tomas
more than two years later, we can reproduce and observe this bug in a variety of ARM32 platforms, including raspbian 9 (with any gcc version shipped there, up to 6.3.x) and rapsbian 10 (up to gcc 6.5, but not with gcc-7.3 or gcc-8.3) You can find the lengthy journey of investing several person-days of work at https://osmocom.org/issues/4062 At Osmocom, we're not compiler experts, but it seems to relate to to what kind of ELF relocations gcc emits during code generation. IIRC, TLS was introduced in 2003, I'm surprised it still appears to be such an under-tested/under-used feature. What would be important is to fully understand this issue in order to desing a proper work-around. Dropping support for 32bit ARM systems or for platforms using gcc lower than 7.x is unfortunately not an option :/
Hi Herald, have you tried to cross-compile the library with -mtls-dialect=gnu2 ? We are using this option as a workaround for this bug because no one seems to be interested in fixing it. I have exactly same findings as you and using a different TLS dialect is the best possible solution that I have found so far. Best regards Tomas
Created attachment 46657 [details] the reproducer created by osmocom
Hi Tomas, thanks a lot for your suggested workaround. Indeed -mtls-dialect=gnu2 seems to be working also in our case. -fPIE as suggested earlier is not an option as the __thread variables are used in a shared library (libosmocore from http://git.osmocom.org/libosmocore/ in our case). Originally the reproducer also built a separate .so file, but it turned out this is not needed, i.e. even when stattically linking a -fPIC built .o file into the executable the problem can be seen very clearly.