linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 2/6] x86, mm, pat: Change reserve

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Date:	Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:30:28 -0600
From:	Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com>
To:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
Cc:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Juergen Gross <jgross@...e.com>,
	Stefan Bader <stefan.bader@...onical.com>,
	Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@....eng.br>,
	Yigal Korman <yigal@...xistor.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 2/6] x86, mm, pat: Change reserve_memtype() to handle
 WT

On Wed, 2014-09-10 at 11:26 -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 9:51 AM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com> wrote:
> > This patch changes reserve_memtype() to handle the WT cache mode.
> > When PAT is not enabled, it continues to set UC- to *new_type for
> > any non-WB request.
> >
> > When a target range is RAM, reserve_ram_pages_type() fails for WT
> > for now.  This function may not reserve a RAM range for WT since
> > reserve_ram_pages_type() uses the page flags limited to three memory
> > types, WB, WC and UC.
> 
> Should it fail if WT is unavailable due to errata?  More generally,
> how are all of the do_something_wc / do_something_wt /
> do_something_nocache helpers supposed to handle unsupported types?

When WT is unavailable due to the PAT errata, it does not fail but gets
redirected to UC-.  Similarly, when PAT is disabled, WT gets redirected
to UC- as well.

The failure case above is a run-time error when WT is enabled and is
targeted to RAM.  In this case, reserve_memtype() fails and sets UC- to
*new_type due to the limitation in page tables.  set_memory_xzy()
interfaces do not retry with new_type, but return an error.  I think
this makes sense since the caller should receive this error as this case
is a bug in the code (while running it on an old system is not a bug).

Thanks,
-Toshi


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