linux-kernel - Re: Why do we set _PAGE

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Message-ID: <53572AAA.4070207@zytor.com>
Date:	Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:51:22 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>
Subject: Re: Why do we set _PAGE_DIRTY for page tables?

On 04/22/2014 07:48 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 4:35 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:
>> I just noticed this:
>>
>> #define _PAGE_TABLE     (_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW | _PAGE_USER |       \
>>                          _PAGE_ACCESSED | _PAGE_DIRTY)
>> #define _KERNPG_TABLE   (_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW | _PAGE_ACCESSED |   \
>>                          _PAGE_DIRTY)
>>
>> Is there a reason we set _PAGE_DIRTY for page tables?  It has no
>> function, but doesn't do any harm either (the dirty bit is ignored for
>> page tables)... it just looks funny to me.
> 
> I think it just got copied, and at least the A bit does matter even in
> page tables (well, it gets updated, I don't know how much that
> "matters"). So the fact that D is ignored is actually the odd man out.
> 

Yes, not setting the A bit means the hardware will take an assist to set
the bit for us, which is a waste of time if we don't care about it.  The
D bit is the one which made me wonder; I thought either it was just copy
& paste, or that it got set to make it more analogous with large pages.

	-hpa


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