From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Dave McCracken <dcm@mccr.org>
Subject: Hugepages don't work on the Xen Linux git tree
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:27:29 -0500
Message-ID: <201004192127.29270.dcm@mccr.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Text/Plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Return-path: <xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>,
	<mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-Help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>,
	<mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com
Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com
Cc: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org>, Xen Developers List <xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org


I hadn't actually tested mainline Linux or the Xen Linux git tree in awhile, 
since we're focusing on RedHat released versions.  When I actually tried to 
use it today it fell over dead as soon as I tried to map a hugepage.

The current method for mapping hugepages does not work at all with Xen.  We 
have set_huge_pte_at() in arch/x86/include/asm/hugetlb.h which does a 
set_pte_at(), but passes it a pmd pointer and a pmd entry.  This will succeed 
on a native Linux kernel, but after passing through the paravirt vector to 
xen_set_pte_at(), it fails miserably.  It expects 
HYPERVISOR_update_va_mapping() to do the right thing and it doesn't.

The fix I have in older kernels is for set_huge_pte_at() to call set_pmd() 
instead.  However, in this brave new world of paravirt vectors, should I 
instead set up a vector for it?  What is the architecturally right thing to 
do?  However we decide to do it, expect a patch for it shortly afterward.

Thanks,
Dave McCracken