Re: [PATCH] tools/hvmloader: move shared_info to reserved memory area

[Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com>]

On 25/10/2012 00:51, "Olaf Hering" <olaf@aepfle.de> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 25, Olaf Hering wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Oct 24, Keir Fraser wrote:
>> 
>>> Which can be as simple as the attached patch (in fact all the changes apart
>>> from introducing GUEST_RESERVED_{START,END} are really cleaning up and
>>> bug-fixing the out-of-space checks in the mem_hole_alloc/mem_alloc
>>> functions).
>>> 
>>> This then just requires that the guest maps shared-info to FE700000 itself.
>>> Should be quite easy. :)
>> 
>> The patch works for me. And the kernel patch I sent yesterday works as
>> well.
>> Is the memory area starting from 0xFC000000 also reserved in older
>> versions, such as Xen3?

It is marked as E820_RESERVED in the e820 map as far back as Xen-3.4.0
(released Spring 2009). Before that it was not covered by an e820 entry, and
there is a slim chance your guest kernel may decide to map something else at
FE700000 (PCI BAR remapping f.ex)?

> And if the guest runs on an older tool stack, is there a slim chance
> that something allocated memory up to 0xFE700000?

Again, back as far as at least Xen-3.4.0, nothing would ever have got mapped
at FE700000. Earlier than that, can't be as authoritative, but I think it's
very unlikely.

 -- Keir

> Olaf