linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v9 10/21] mm: Add generic p?d

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Date:   Thu, 1 Aug 2019 13:22:30 +0100
From:   Steven Price <steven.price@....com>
To:     Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@....com>,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>
Cc:     Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>, x86@...nel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Jérôme Glisse <jglisse@...hat.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        James Morse <james.morse@....com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        "Liang, Kan" <kan.liang@...ux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v9 10/21] mm: Add generic p?d_leaf() macros

On 01/08/2019 07:09, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> 
> 
> On 07/29/2019 05:08 PM, Steven Price wrote:
>> On 28/07/2019 12:44, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 07/23/2019 03:11 PM, Mark Rutland wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 04:41:59PM +0100, Steven Price wrote:
>>>>> Exposing the pud/pgd levels of the page tables to walk_page_range() means
>>>>> we may come across the exotic large mappings that come with large areas
>>>>> of contiguous memory (such as the kernel's linear map).
>>>>>
>>>>> For architectures that don't provide all p?d_leaf() macros, provide
>>>>> generic do nothing default that are suitable where there cannot be leaf
>>>>> pages that that level.
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Steven Price <steven.price@....com>
>>>>
>>>> Not a big deal, but it would probably make sense for this to be patch 1
>>>> in the series, given it defines the semantic of p?d_leaf(), and they're
>>>> not used until we provide all the architectural implemetnations anyway.
>>>
>>> Agreed.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> It might also be worth pointing out the reasons for this naming, e.g.
>>>> p?d_large() aren't currently generic, and this name minimizes potential
>>>> confusion between p?d_{large,huge}().
>>>
>>> Agreed. But these fallback also need to first check non-availability of large
>>> pages. I am not sure whether CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE config being clear indicates
>>> that conclusively or not. Being a page table leaf entry has a broader meaning
>>> than a large page but that is really not the case today. All leaf entries here
>>> are large page entries from MMU perspective. This dependency can definitely be
>>> removed when there are other types of leaf entries but for now IMHO it feels
>>> bit problematic not to directly associate leaf entries with large pages in
>>> config restriction while doing exactly the same.
>>
>> The intention here is that the page walkers are able to walk any type of
>> page table entry which the kernel may use. CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE only
>> controls whether "huge TLB pages" are used by user space processes. It's
>> quite possible that option to not be selected but the linear mapping to
>> have been mapped using "large pages" (i.e. leaf entries further up the
>> tree than normal).
> 
> I understand that kernel page table might use large pages where as user space
> never enabled HugeTLB. The point to make here was CONFIG_HUGETLB approximately
> indicates the presence of large pages though the absence of same does not
> conclusively indicate that large pages are really absent on the MMU. Perhaps it
> will requires something new like MMU_[LARGE|HUGE]_PAGES.

CONFIG_HUGETLB doesn't necessarily mean leaf entries can appear anywhere
other than PTE. Some architectures always have a full tree of page
tables, but can program their TLBs with larger entries - I think all the
architectures I've come across have software page table walking, but in
theory the arm64 contiguous hint bit could be considered similar.

Steve