[PATCH v3 1/2] Generic handling of multi-page exclusions

[Petr Tesarik]

On Wed, 14 May 2014 19:54:28 +0900 (JST)
HATAYAMA Daisuke <d.hatayama at jp.fujitsu.com> wrote:

> From: HATAYAMA Daisuke <d.hatayama at jp.fujitsu.com>
> Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] Generic handling of multi-page exclusions
> Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 19:37:23 +0900
> 
> > From: Atsushi Kumagai <kumagai-atsushi at mxc.nes.nec.co.jp>
> > Subject: RE: [PATCH v3 1/2] Generic handling of multi-page exclusions
> > Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 07:54:17 +0000
> > 
> >> Hello Petr,
> >> 
> >>>When multiple pages are excluded from the dump, store the extents in
> >>>struct cycle and check if anything is still pending on the next invocation
> >>>of __exclude_unnecessary_pages. This assumes that:
> >>>
> >>>  1. after __exclude_unnecessary_pages is called for a struct mem_map_data
> >>>     that extends beyond the current cycle, it is not called again during
> >>>     that cycle,
> >>>  2. in the next cycle, __exclude_unnecessary_pages is not called before
> >>>     this final struct mem_map_data.
> >>>
> >>>Both assumptions are met if struct mem_map_data segments:
> >>>
> >>>  1. do not overlap,
> >>>  2. are sorted by physical address in ascending order.
> >> 
> >> In ELF case, write_elf_pages_cyclic() processes PT_LOAD entries from
> >> PT_LOAD(0), this can break both assumptions unluckily.
> >> Actually this patch doesn't work on my machine:
> >> 
> >> LOAD (0)
> >>   phys_start : 1000000
> >>   phys_end   : 182f000
> >>   virt_start : ffffffff81000000
> >>   virt_end   : ffffffff8182f000
> >> LOAD (1)
> >>   phys_start : 1000
> >>   phys_end   : 9b400
> >>   virt_start : ffff810000001000
> >>   virt_end   : ffff81000009b400
> >> LOAD (2)
> >>   phys_start : 100000
> >>   phys_end   : 27000000
> >>   virt_start : ffff810000100000
> >>   virt_end   : ffff810027000000
> >> LOAD (3)
> >>   phys_start : 37000000
> >>   phys_end   : cff70000
> >>   virt_start : ffff810037000000
> >>   virt_end   : ffff8100cff70000
> >> LOAD (4)
> >>   phys_start : 100000000
> >>   phys_end   : 170000000
> >>   virt_start : ffff810100000000
> >>   virt_end   : ffff810170000000
> >> 
> >> 
> >> PT_LOAD(2) includes PT_LOAD(0) and there physical addresses aren't sorted.
> >> 
> >> If there is the only "sort issue", it may easy to fix it with a new iterator
> >> like "for_each_pt_load()", it iterates PT_LOAD entries in ascending order
> >> by physical address.
> >> However, I don't have a good idea to solve the overlap issue now...
> >> 
> > 
> > Is it enough to merge them? Prepare a modified version of PTLOAD list
> > and refer to it in actual processing. I think this also leads to
> > cleaning up readpage_elf() that addresses some overapping memory map
> > issue on ia64.
> > 
> 
> I'm saying this because I don't find anywhere virt_start or virt_end
> is used. We look up page table to convert virtual address to physical
> address, not PT_LOAD entries.

Oh, you're right! Why does the ordering of PT_LOAD segments matter here?
If makedumpfile fails on your machine after applying my patches, then
it's quite likely because of something else.

FWIW I verified on a few dumpfiles that makedumpfile produced exactly
the same output before and after applying the patches.

OTOH I can see a warning when writing an ELF file. Before the patch:

Excluding unnecessary pages        : [100.0 %] \WARNING: PFN out of cycle range. (pfn:c00, cycle:[3fc00-3ffd0])

After the patch:

Excluding unnecessary pages        : [100.0 %] \WARNING: PFN out of cycle range. (pfn:26c00, cycle:[0-1ff6])

I'm unsure why there are out-of-cycle PFNs. Researching...

Petr T