[PATCH V3 2/2] ARM: Handle user space mapped pages in flush_kernel_dcache_page

Catalin Marinas catalin.marinas at arm.com
Thu May 2 05:54:31 EDT 2013


On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 08:04:41PM +0100, Simon Baatz wrote:
> On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 03:22:06PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 10:04:03PM +0100, Simon Baatz wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:22:25PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > > On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 11:06:30PM +0100, Simon Baatz wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 02:51:04PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > > > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 12:40:16PM +0100, Jason Cooper wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > > 
> > > > > It is not the driver itself which is using the API, it is the
> > > > > generic scatterlist memory iterator. And I don't think that this is
> > > > > wrong, as I have tried to explain in [1].
> > > > 
> > > > Trying to remember what we've discussed over the past months on this
> > > > topic. It looks like sg_miter_stop() does the right thing in calling
> > > > flush_kernel_dcache_page(). Commit f8b63c1 (ARM: 6382/1: Remove
> > > > superfluous flush_kernel_dcache_page()) removed this function entirely.
> > > > The code previously had this comment - /* highmem pages are always
> > > > flushed upon kunmap already */ which I think it wasn't fully correct
> > > > either. The kunmap_atomic() flushes the caches but kunmap() doesn't, so
> > > > I suspect we only get the flushing if SG_MITER_ATOMIC.
> > > > 
> > > > So it looks to me like flush_kernel_dcache_page() should be implemented
> > > > even for highmem pages (with VIVT or aliasing VIPT, at least for non
> > > > kmap_atomic addresses by checking for FIXADDR_START). If highmem is
> > > > disabled, I suspect we still need this function since the calling code
> > > > doesn't care whether kmap/kunmap was a no-op. But can we keep it as a
> > > > simple call to __cpuc_flush_dcache_area(page_address(page), PAGE_SIZE)?
> > > 
> > > My first version ([1]) had:
> > > 
> > > 	if ((cache_is_vivt() || cache_is_vipt_aliasing()) && !PageHighMem(page))
> > > 		__flush_kernel_dcache_page(page);
> > > 
> > > If I understand this correctly, you are proposing to remove the
> > > highmem exclusion.
> > 
> > The highmem exclusion may have been there originally because of a
> > comment suggesting that kunmap() does the flushing. This is the case
> > only for kunmap_atomic() AFAICT (and maybe we could remove that as well
> > and rely on flush_kernel_dcache_page() being called).
> > 
> > > And then in __flush_kernel_dcache_page():
> > > 
> > > 	mapping = page_mapping(page);
> > > 
> > > 	if (!mapping || mapping_mapped(mapping))
> > > 		__cpuc_flush_dcache_area(page_address(page), PAGE_SIZE);
> > > 
> > > I still prefer to have this condition here to avoid the flush when
> > > there is no user mapping at all.  This is handled by lazy flushing
> > > and is probably the most common case anyway (given how many people
> > > seem to be affected by this problem).
> > 
> > Looking at the old thread, you said there is a case when this condition
> > is not true (O_DIRECT case). If that's for a page cache page, then we
> > can handle it lazily (for anonymous pages I don't think we can rely on
> > lazy flushing since the kernel does not guarantee the clearing of the
> > PG_arch_1 bit).
> 
> As Russel pointed out in a comment to a later version of the patch,
> PG_arch_1 makes only sense for page cache pages. The condition above
> is ok from my point of view (it is based on what flush_dcache_page()
> uses):
> 
> - Page cache page without user space mapping:
> mapping != NULL and mapping_mapped() == 0
> 
> -> no flush here; lazy flush based on PG_arch_1 later if needed (we
>    rely on the proper initialization of the page to "dirty" here.)

Indeed.

> - Page cache page with user space mapping:
> mapping != NULL and mapping_mapped() != 0
> 
> -> kernel mapping flushed here (user mapping can be assumed to be clean)

We had similar thoughts for AArch64 here and decided it's not needed, it
can just clear the PG_arch_1 bit and do it lazily (patches not pushed
yet, need more testing). This assumes that even if mapping_mapped(), the
page is not actually mapped in user space and we eventually get a
set_pte_at() call. That's what powerpc is doing.

> - Anonymous page:
> mapping == NULL
> 
> -> kernel mapping flushed here (user mapping can be assumed to be clean)

I don't think it should care about anonymous pages at all. I put a
WARN_ON(!mapping) in flush_dcache_page() and it hasn't triggered yet,
though not intensive testing.

> > > Additionally, although we can assume that the page is kmapped,
> > > page_address(page) can still be NULL for a highmem page, right?
> > 
> > It looks like kmap() always sets page_address(page) but I'm not sure
> > about kmap_atomic(), it doesn't seem to.
> 
> Hmm, in __flush_dcache_page() we have the following code to flush the
> kernel mapping:
> 
> void __flush_dcache_page(struct address_space *mapping, struct page *page)
> {
> 	/*
> 	 * Writeback any data associated with the kernel mapping of this
> 	 * page.  This ensures that data in the physical page is mutually
> 	 * coherent with the kernels mapping.
> 	 */
> 	if (!PageHighMem(page)) {
> 		__cpuc_flush_dcache_area(page_address(page), PAGE_SIZE);
> 	} else {
> 		void *addr = kmap_high_get(page);
> 		if (addr) {
> 			__cpuc_flush_dcache_area(addr, PAGE_SIZE);
> 			kunmap_high(page);
> 		} else if (cache_is_vipt()) {
> 			/* unmapped pages might still be cached */
> 			addr = kmap_atomic(page);
> 			__cpuc_flush_dcache_area(addr, PAGE_SIZE);
> 			kunmap_atomic(addr);
> 		}
> 	}
> ...
> 
> 
> We probably should reuse it in flush_kernel_dcache_page() to flush
> the kernel mapping. (The last else clause looks strange though)

I think it makes sense to reuse this logic in
flush_kernel_dcache_page(). If the page is already mapped with kmap,
then kmap_high_get() should return the actual address. If it was mapped
with kmap_atomic, kmap_high_get() would return NULL, hence the 'else'
clause and the additional kmap_atomic(). The cache_is_vipt() check is
useful because kunmap_atomic() would flush VIVT caches anyway.

As for __flush_dcache_page() called from other places like
flush_dcache_page(), because of this 'else if' clause it looks like it
misses flushing unmapped highmem pages on VIVT cache.

-- 
Catalin



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