From: Nick Owens <mischief@offblast.org>
Subject: riscv64: enable vector extension before reading vlenb
To: tech@openbsd.org
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2026 21:29:34 -0700

hi,

similar to the mail about scounteren, the V spec says accessing V csrs
without VS enabled gets an illegal instruction exception.

explicitly set VS to initial value before accessing vlenb to fix it,
which fixes an early panic in cpu_identify.

diff --git a/sys/arch/riscv64/riscv64/cpu.c b/sys/arch/riscv64/riscv64/cpu.c
index a7b0df257f7..6d2bafa9629 100644
--- a/sys/arch/riscv64/riscv64/cpu.c
+++ b/sys/arch/riscv64/riscv64/cpu.c
@@ -279,7 +279,10 @@ cpu_identify(struct cpu_info *ci)
 	}
 
 	if ((riscv_hwcap & HWCAP_ISA_V) != 0) {
+		/* Reading a vector CSR with sstatus.VS off traps. */
+		csr_set(sstatus, SSTATUS_VS_INITIAL);
 		vlenb = csr_read(vlenb);
+		csr_clear(sstatus, SSTATUS_VS_MASK);
 
 		if (CPU_IS_PRIMARY(ci)) {
 			if (vlenb > VLEN_BYTES_MAX) {