netdev - Re: [PATCH] af_packet: flush complete kernel cache in packet

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Date:	Mon, 5 Sep 2011 21:57:14 +0200
From:	Phil Sutter <phil.sutter@...rinet.com>
To:	Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@....linux.org.uk>
Cc:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>,
	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] af_packet: flush complete kernel cache in packet_sendmsg

Hi,

On Fri, Sep 02, 2011 at 06:28:50PM +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 02, 2011 at 02:46:17PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Fri, 2011-09-02 at 13:08 +0200, Phil Sutter wrote:
> > > This flushes the cache before and after accessing the mmapped packet
> > > buffer. It seems like the call to flush_dcache_page from inside
> > > __packet_get_status is not enough on Kirkwood (or ARM in general).
> > > ---
> > > I know this is far from an optimal solution, but it's in fact the only working
> > > one I found.
> > [...]
> > 
> > This is ridiculous.  If flush_dcache_page() isn't doing everything it
> > should, you need to fix that.
> 
> It does do everything it should - which is to perform maintanence on
> page cache pages.  It flushes the kernel mapping of the page.  It
> also flushes the userspace mappings of the page which it finds by
> walking the mmap list via the associated struct page.  It does not
> touch vmalloc mappings because it has no way to know whether they
> exist or not.
> 
> It doesn't do so much for anonymous pages - to do so would only
> duplicate what flush_anon_page() does at the very same callsites.
> Plus the mmap list isn't available for such pages so there's no
> way to find out what userspace addresses to flush.

Indeed very interesting information, thanks a lot!

The code in question uses __get_free_pages(), and if that fails uses
vmalloc() (see alloc_one_pg_vec_page() for reference). Both code paths
show result in the same faulty behaviour.

> If the AF_PACKET buffers are created from anonymous pages and it's
> using flush_dcache_page(), it's using the wrong interface.

So, in order to fix this, which alternative would you suggest? Quite a
lot of work has been done regarding memory allocation, so I guess
changing that side is a no-go.

Greetings, Phil

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