Re: [RFC PATCH v3 02/20] x86: Set the write-protect cache mode for full PAT support

From: Tom Lendacky
Date: Mon Nov 14 2016 - 12:26:09 EST


On 11/10/2016 07:26 PM, Kani, Toshimitsu wrote:
> On Thu, 2016-11-10 at 14:14 +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
>> + Toshi.
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 06:34:48PM -0600, Tom Lendacky wrote:
>>>
>>> For processors that support PAT, set the write-protect cache mode
>>> (_PAGE_CACHE_MODE_WP) entry to the actual write-protect value
>>> (x05).
>
> Using slot 6 may be more cautious (for the same reason slot 7 was used
> for WT), but I do not have a strong opinion for it.
>
> set_page_memtype() cannot track the use of WP type since there is no
> extra-bit available for WP, but WP is only supported by
> early_memremap_xx() interfaces in this series. So, I think we should
> just document that WP is only intended for temporary mappings at boot-
> time until this issue is resolved. Also, we need to make sure that
> this early_memremap for WP is only called after pat_init() is done.

Sounds good, I'll add documentation to cover these points.

>
> A nit - please add WP to the function header comment below.
> "This function initializes PAT MSR and PAT table with an OS-defined
> value to enable additional cache attributes, WC and WT."

Will do.

Thanks,
Tom

>
> Thanks,
> -Toshi
>