Hi Catalin,
On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:29:54AM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
>
> > > +void __flush_dcache_page(struct address_space *mapping, struct page *page)
> > > +{
> > > + __flush_dcache_area(page_address(page), PAGE_SIZE);
> > > +}
> > > +
> > > +void __sync_icache_dcache(pte_t pte)
> > > +{
> > > + unsigned long pfn;
> > > + struct page *page;
> > > +
> > > + pfn = pte_pfn(pte);
> > > + if (!pfn_valid(pfn))
> > > + return;
> > > +
> > > + page = pfn_to_page(pfn);
> > > + if (!test_and_set_bit(PG_dcache_clean, &page->flags))
> > > + __flush_dcache_page(NULL, page);
> > > + __flush_icache_all();
> > > +}
> > > +
> > > +/*
> > > + * Ensure cache coherency between kernel mapping and userspace mapping of this
> > > + * page.
> > > + */
> > > +void flush_dcache_page(struct page *page)
> > > +{
> > > + struct address_space *mapping;
> > > +
> > > + /*
> > > + * The zero page is never written to, so never has any dirty cache
> > > + * lines, and therefore never needs to be flushed.
> > > + */
> > > + if (page == ZERO_PAGE(0))
> > > + return;
> > > +
> > > + mapping = page_mapping(page);
> > > +
> > > + if (mapping && !mapping_mapped(mapping))
> > > + clear_bit(PG_dcache_clean, &page->flags);
> > > + else {
> > > + __flush_dcache_page(mapping, page);
> > > + if (mapping)
> > > + __flush_icache_all();
> >
> >
> > Is this necessary to ensure I/D coherency? Then, I would have
> > expected
> >
> > if (mapping) {
> > __flush_dcache_page(mapping, page);
> > __flush_icache_all();
> > }
> >
> > similar to __sync_icache_dcache() above.
>
> We don't want to do additional flushing if !mapping_mapped() as the page
> isn't mapped in user space. In this case we defer the flushing until
> __sync_icache_dcache().
>
> The other case is for anonymous pages where mapping == NULL. Here we
> don't defer the D-cache flush and do it directly. The I-cache, if
> needed, is handled later in __sync_icache_dcache(). This was based on
> the idea that this case is mainly for the args/env page which is mapped
> shortly after anyway, so not worth deferring. On AArch64, I don't think
> it makes any difference. Maybe a slight improvement (at least in
> clarity) in flush_dcache_page():
>
> if (mapping && mapping_mapped(mapping)) {
> __flush_dcache_page(page);
> __flush_icache_all();
> set_bit(PG_dcache_clean, &page->flags);
> } else {
> clear_bit(PG_dcache_clean, &page->flags);
> }
>
> In this case the anonymous page flushing is deferred to
> __sync_icache_dcache().
Yes, I think this is much clearer. It makes clear that the D-cache
flush is done to avoid I/D incoherencies. Previously, the obvious
question was "Why do we flush only the D-cache in some situations
given that it essentially behaves like a PIPT cache?" (the motivation
for this became only clear to me after your explanation.)
However, the reason why this was an obvious question for me is
interesting: I think the main use case you had in mind does not
happen since about five years (since commit b6a2fe, "mm: variable
length argument support"). And I had a completely different main use
case in mind.
I reckon that the use case you refer to is the use in fs/exec.c?
Copying arg/env was changed in the commit mentioned above. This also
changed the use of flush_dcache_page() (which is not supposed to
handle anon pages) into flush_kernel_dcache_page() (which is supposed
to handle kernel modified user pages, i.e. also anon pages).
Nevertheless, the __flush_dcache_page(mapping, page) in the
mapping==NULL case is absoluty necessary for aliasing D-caches on arm
for the use case I had in mind (which does not apply to arm64 and
thus my question).
In case of direct I/O (and probably also in other cases like SG_IO)
the block layer will see pages from get_user_pages() directly, i.e.
also anonymous pages. Many drivers (especially emulated storage
drivers like dm-crypt) use flush_dcache_page() after modifying a
page. Although flush_dcache_page() is not even supposed to handle
anonymous pages, it flushes the kernel mapping of the page because of
this code line and everything is well on aliasing D-caches.
Ironically, flush_kernel_dcache_page(), which is specifically
designed to handle this case, does not on arm. Thus, those few parts
of the kernel which use flush_kernel_dcache_page() may fail horribly
(for example the scatterlist memory iterator API, see [1]).
Back to arm64 (and possibly to arm with non-aliasing D-caches?), this
also means that the saved D-cache flush in the anonymous page case is
not only a slight improvement on clarity, but may avoid a
considerable number of D-cache flushes in some I/O situations. (If
it is still correct that there are no problems with the I-cache for
this use case.)
If now we could additionally avoid to flush the entire I-cache for
every page in direct I/O operations with user mapped page cache
pages (e.g. direct I/O read into an mmap region)...
> > What is the reason why the D-cache flush is done in different
> > cases than the following I-cache flush?
>
> For __sync_icache_dcache(), we need to handle the situation where the
> page mapped into user space has been cleaned (D-cache) but there may be
> stale data in the I-cache. I think this can only happen with an
> ASID-tagged VIVT I-cache configuration (which is allowed on AArch64) if
> an existing page has been unmapped and the same virtual address remapped
> (withing the same mm context) to a different page that had been cleaned
> previously. We could optimise the __sync_icache_dcache() as below:
>
> if (!test_and_set_bit(PG_dcache_clean, &page->flags)) {
> __flush_dcache_page(page);
> __flush_icache_all();
> } else if (icache_is_aivivt()) {
> __flush_icache_all();
> }
Sorry, this is out of my depth. I think I don't really understand the
cases leading to I/D incoherency.
- Simon
[1] http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2012-July/111393.html
PS: You did not mention the following comment from my mail. It was
easy to overlook. Just to make sure you did not miss it:
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/cache.S b/arch/arm64/mm/cache.S
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..3df0aa7
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/arch/arm64/mm/cache.S
...
> +/*
> + * __flush_kern_dcache_page(kaddr)
Should be: __flush_dcache_area(kaddr,size)
> + *
> + * Ensure that the data held in the page kaddr is written back
> to the
> + * page in question.
s/page/area
> + *
> + * - kaddr - kernel address
> + * - size - size in question
> + */
> +ENTRY(__flush_dcache_area)
> + dcache_line_size x2, x3
> + add x1, x0, x1
> +
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