linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] Small Xen bugfixes

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Date:	Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:06:06 -0700
From:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	"Xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com" <Xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@...rix.com>,
	Vasiliy G Tolstov <v.tolstov@...fip.ru>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Small Xen bugfixes

 On 10/29/2010 12:20 PM, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
>  On 10/29/2010 12:08 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org> wrote:
>>>    * fix dom0 boot on systems whose E820 doesn't completely cover the
>>>      ISA address space.  This fixes a crash on a Dell R310.
>> Hmm. This clashes with my current tree.
> Bugger, so it does.  I just did a test merge with no complaint though;
> what happened?
>
> I'll redo the patch anyway to fix the below.
>
>> And that conflict is trivial to fix up, but the thing is, I think the
>> patch that comes from your tree is worse than what is already there.
>>
>> Why is that simple unconditional
>>
>>     e820_add_region(ISA_START_ADDRESS, ISA_END_ADDRESS - ISA_START_ADDRESS,
>>            E820_RESERVED);
>>
>> not just always the right thing? Why do you have a separate hack for
>> dom0 in xen_release_chunk() instead? That just looks bogus.
> Yes, we actually had this discussion.  I was for making the
> e820_add_region unconditional, and Ian's counter was that it could be
> done in the common code rather than Xen-specific.
>
>> The normal logic we use on PC's is to just always reserve the low 64kB
>> of memory, and the whole ISA space. Why doesn't Xen just do the same?
> The specific issue is that the Xen domain returns any memory that's not
> covered by an E820 entry back to Xen, mostly to make sure that memory
> isn't wasted by being shadowed by PCI devices.  But it was also doing
> this in the sub-1M region, which on all the machines I've tested on is
> completely covered.  But on a Dell R310 there's a little 2-page gap
> where some ACPI stuff is lurking, that was being released back to Xen so
> it couldn't be accessed from Linux any more.
>
> The fix is to just make sure the whole low region is covered (or at
> least the 640k-1M space).

Hm, I see.  This Dell machine stashes the MPS table in 2 pages just
*below* 640k, so the ISA_START_ADDRESS-ISA_END_ADDRESS reserved range
doesn't cover it.

There's three ways to fix this:

    * not free memory below 1M (Ian's current patch)
    * fill any E820 gaps below 1M
    * reserve all memory below 1M

The 3rd is certainly simplest, at the cost of wasting a trivial amount
of memory.  Unfortunately it crashes early.  Sigh, will try and sort it
out this afternoon.

    J
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