linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 3/11] x86, mm, pat: Change reserve

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Message-ID: <53C5BD3E.2010600@zytor.com>
Date:	Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:46:06 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com>
CC:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
	plagnioj@...osoft.com, tomi.valkeinen@...com,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Stefan Bader <stefan.bader@...onical.com>,
	Dave Airlie <airlied@...il.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 3/11] x86, mm, pat: Change reserve_memtype() to handle
 WT type

On 07/15/2014 04:36 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 4:10 PM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 2014-07-15 at 12:56 -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com> wrote:
>>>> This patch changes reserve_memtype() to handle the new WT type.
>>>> When (!pat_enabled && new_type), it continues to set either WB
>>>> or UC- to *new_type.  When pat_enabled, it can reserve a given
>>>> non-RAM range for WT.  At this point, it 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.
>>>
>>> FWIW, last time I looked at this, it seemed like all the fancy
>>> reserve_ram_pages stuff was unnecessary: shouldn't the RAM type be
>>> easy to track in the direct map page tables?
>>
>> Are you referring the direct map page tables as the kernel page
>> directory tables (pgd/pud/..)?
>>
>> I think it needs to be able to keep track of the memory type per a
>> physical memory range, not per a translation, in order to prevent
>> aliasing of the memory type.
> 
> Actual RAM (the lowmem kind, which is all of it on x86_64) is mapped
> linearly somewhere in kernel address space.  The pagetables for that
> mapping could be used as the canonical source of the memory type for
> the ram range in question.
> 
> This only works for lowmem, so maybe it's not a good idea to rely on it.
> 

We could do that, but would it be better?

	-hpa


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