Re: [PATCH] x86: Construct 32 bit boot time page tables in nativeformat.

[Jeremy Fitzhardinge]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> No, if Xen wasn't an issue there wouldn't be anything to do for the 
> PAE case at all (since the PGD is trivial.)
>
> Copying PMDs is more or less an analogous case of the !PAE case, once 
> the allocation is already done.  The allocation should be trivial 
> though, since this would be a one-time thing.

I think we're in vehement agreement here.  In either case, its just a 
matter of something like:

   memcpy(pgd, &pgd[USER_PTRS_PER_PGD], sizeof(pgd_t) * KERNEL_PTRS_PER_PGD);
     

which would work for both PAE and non-PAE.

> > It would be easy enough to add some code on xen side to look for pmd 
> > aliases when using/pinning a pagetable, and allocate'n'copy a new pmd 
> > page as needed.  That way the core code can ignore the issue.
>
> As much as I'd rather see Xen fixing this than having it continue to 
> impact the kernel, I presume it will take some time to flush the 
> broken hypervisors out? 

Sorry, I was unclear.  I meant in the purely Xen-specific parts of the 
kernel (arch/x86/xen).  It wouldn't require a hypervisor change.

   J
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/