Subject: [PATCH] Never panic when taking altivec exceptions from userspace

From: Anton Blanchard <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 11:41:00 +1000

At the moment we rely on a cpu feature bit or a firmware property to
detect altivec. If we dont have either of these and the cpu does in fact
support altivec we can cause a panic from userspace.

It seems safer to always send a signal if we manage to get an 0xf20
exception from userspace.

Signed-off-by: Anton Blanchard <[email-masked]>
---

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c
index d9f10f2..5ed4c2c 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c
@@ -900,14 +900,13 @@ void kernel_fp_unavailable_exception(str
 
 void altivec_unavailable_exception(struct pt_regs *regs)
 {
-#if !defined(CONFIG_ALTIVEC)
 	if (user_mode(regs)) {
 		/* A user program has executed an altivec instruction,
 		   but this kernel doesn't support altivec. */
 		_exception(SIGILL, regs, ILL_ILLOPC, regs->nip);
 		return;
 	}
-#endif
+
 	printk(KERN_EMERG "Unrecoverable VMX/Altivec Unavailable Exception "
 			"%lx at %lx\n", regs->trap, regs->nip);
 	die("Unrecoverable VMX/Altivec Unavailable Exception", regs, SIGABRT);