[PATCH V4] ARM: handle user space mapped pages in flush_kernel_dcache_page

Simon Baatz gmbnomis at gmail.com
Mon Jun 3 13:38:18 EDT 2013


Hi Catalin,

On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 03:15:08PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 01:05:19PM +0100, Jason Cooper wrote:
> > On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 05:43:35PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 08:16:57PM +0100, Simon Baatz wrote:
> > > > On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 12:05:09PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > > > On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 06:35:56AM +0100, Simon Baatz wrote:
> > > > > > Commit f8b63c1 made flush_kernel_dcache_page a no-op assuming that the pages
> > > > > > it needs to handle are kernel mapped only.  However, for example when doing
> > > > > > direct I/O, pages with user space mappings may occur.
> > > > > 
> > > > > After Nico's clarification, I think the original commit introducing this
> > > > > function was also incomplete (commit 73be1591 - [ARM] 5545/2: add
> > > > > flush_kernel_dcache_page() for ARM) since it ignores highmem pages and
> > > > > their flushing could be deferred for a long time.
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, I agree.
> > > >  
> > > > > For my understanding (if I re-read this tread) - basically code like
> > > > > this should not leave the user mapping inconsistent:
> > > > > 
> > > > > kmap()
> > > > > ...
> > > > > flush_kernel_dcache_page()
> > > > > kunmap()
> ...
> > 
> > wrt to 73be1591, this appears to go all the way back to v2.6.31.x... Can
> > Simon go ahead and put this in rmk's patch tracker and mention that it
> > should go to all -stable trees?
> 
> I'm not sure how easy it is to apply this patch on past stable versions.
> Maybe something simpler for stable like always flushing the cache in
> flush_kernel_dcache_page() with optimisation only in recent stable
> versions.

Looking at how to adapt the change to previous kernel versions, it
occurred to me that we could probably simplify the current patch
since we can make stronger assumptions than __flush_dcache_page()
can do. As discussed, __flush_dcache_page() does:

                        addr = kmap_high_get(page);
                        if (addr) {
                                __cpuc_flush_dcache_area(addr, PAGE_SIZE);
                                kunmap_high(page);
                        }

The kmap_high_get() is used to ensure that the page is/remains pinned
during the flush.  However, the API of flush_kernel_dcache_page()
ensures that the page is already kmapped when it is called (as in the
quoted example above).

Thus, it is already pinned and we can simply look at page_address(). 
If it is NULL, the page must have been obtained via kmap_atomic() and
we don't need to flush anyway since kunmap_atomic() will do this. 

The actual flush covering both the lowmem and highmem cases actually
is as simple as this (inspired by __flush_dcache_page() in 2.6.32):

	addr = page_address(page);
#ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
	/*
	 * kmap_atomic() doesn't set the page virtual address, and
	 * kunmap_atomic() takes care of cache flushing already.
	 */
	if (addr)
#endif
		__cpuc_flush_dcache_area(addr, PAGE_SIZE);

If you agree that this makes sense, I will send a new version.

If we change the patch this way, there is no need to split off
__flush_kernel_dcache_page() from __flush_dcache_page(), which also
makes it simpler to apply to past stable kernels.

The only thing we need to be aware of is the change of
flush_kernel_dcache_page() in 2.6.37 (commit f8b63c1).  In earlier
versions, we would only need to fix the highmem case.  However, I
wonder whether it makes sense to apply a fix to 2.6.32 and 2.6.34
without this ever being reported as a problem.


- Simon



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