Rusty Russell wrote:
> You're thinking of it in a convoluted way, by converting to offsets
> from the per-cpu section, then converting it back. How about this
> explanation: the local cpu's versions are offset from where the compiler
> thinks they are by __per_cpu_offset[cpu]. We set the segment base to
> __per_cpu_offset[cpu], so "%gs:per_cpu__foo" gets us straight to the
> local cpu version. __per_cpu_offset[cpu] is always positive (kernel
> image sits at bottom of kernel address space).
>
We're talking kernel virtual addresses, so the physical load address
doesn't matter, of course.
So, take this kernel I have here as an explicit example:
$ nm -n vmlinux
[...]
c0431100 A __per_cpu_start
[...]
c0433800 D per_cpu__cpu_gdt_descr
c0433880 D per_cpu__cpu_tlbstate
And say that this CPU has its percpu data allocated at 0xc100000.
So, in this case the %gs base will be loaded with 0xc100000-0xc0431100 =
0x4bccef00
The offset of per_cpu__cpu_gdt_descr is 0xc0433800, so
%gs:per_cpu__cpu_gdt_descr will compute 0x4bccef00+0xc0433800 to get the
final linear address. Since 0xc0433800 is negative, this is actually a
subtraction, and it therefore requires the segment to have a 4G limit.
Which makes Xen sad.
>> Especially since "__per_cpu_start" is actually very
>> large, and so this scheme pretty much relies on being able to wrap
>> around the segment limit, and will be very bad for Xen.
>>
>
> __per_cpu_start is large, yes. But there's no reason to use it in
> address calculation. The second half of your statement is not correct.
>
__per_cpu_start is added to all per_cpu__* addresses.
>> An alternative is to put the "-__per_cpu_start" into the addressing mode
>> when constructing the address of the per-cpu variable.
>>
>
> I think you're thinking of TLS relocations? I don't use them...
>
No, but this is just as bad.
J
