Le 07/03/2020 à 01:56, Anshuman Khandual a écrit :
On 03/07/2020 06:04 AM, Qian Cai wrote:
On Mar 6, 2020, at 7:03 PM, Anshuman Khandual <Anshuman.Khandual@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Hmm, set_pte_at() function is not preferred here for these tests. The idea
is to avoid or atleast minimize TLB/cache flushes triggered from these sort
of 'static' tests. set_pte_at() is platform provided and could/might trigger
these flushes or some other platform specific synchronization stuff. Just
Why is that important for this debugging option?
Primarily reason is to avoid TLB/cache flush instructions on the system
during these tests that only involve transforming different page table
level entries through helpers. Unless really necessary, why should it
emit any TLB/cache flush instructions ?
What's the problem with thoses flushes ?
wondering is there specific reason with respect to the soft lock up problem
making it necessary to use set_pte_at() rather than a simple WRITE_ONCE() ?
Looks at the s390 version of set_pte_at(), it has this comment,
vmaddr);
/*
* Certain architectures need to do special things when PTEs
* within a page table are directly modified. Thus, the following
* hook is made available.
*/
I can only guess that powerpc could be the same here.
This comment is present in multiple platforms while defining set_pte_at().
Is not 'barrier()' here alone good enough ? Else what exactly set_pte_at()
does as compared to WRITE_ONCE() that avoids the soft lock up, just trying
to understand.
Argh ! I didn't realise that you were writing directly into the page
tables. When it works, that's only by chance I guess.
To properly set the page table entries, set_pte_at() has to be used:
- On powerpc 8xx, with 16k pages, the page table entry must be copied
four times. set_pte_at() does it, WRITE_ONCE() doesn't.
- On powerpc book3s/32 (hash MMU), the flag _PAGE_HASHPTE must be
preserved among writes. set_pte_at() preserves it, WRITE_ONCE() doesn't.
set_pte_at() also does a few other mandatory things, like calling
pte_mkpte()
So, the WRITE_ONCE() must definitely become a set_pte_at()
Christophe
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