Re: [RFC V2 0/1] mm/debug: Add tests for architecture exported page table helpers

Matthew Wilcox
2019-08-26T13:13:08Z

On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 08:07:13AM +0530, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> On 08/09/2019 07:22 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 04:05:07PM +0530, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> >> On 08/09/2019 03:46 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> >>> On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 01:03:17PM +0530, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> >>>> Should alloc_gigantic_page() be made available as an interface for general
> >>>> use in the kernel. The test module here uses very similar implementation from
> >>>> HugeTLB to allocate a PUD aligned memory block. Similar for mm_alloc() which
> >>>> needs to be exported through a header.
> >>>
> >>> Why are you allocating memory at all instead of just using some
> >>> known-to-exist PFNs like I suggested?
> >>
> >> We needed PFN to be PUD aligned for pfn_pud() and PMD aligned for mk_pmd().
> >> Now walking the kernel page table for a known symbol like kernel_init()
> >
> > I didn't say to walk the kernel page table. I said to call virt_to_pfn()
> > for a known symbol like kernel_init().
> >
> >> as you had suggested earlier we might encounter page table page entries at PMD
> >> and PUD which might not be PMD or PUD aligned respectively. It seemed to me
> >> that alignment requirement is applicable only for mk_pmd() and pfn_pud()
> >> which create large mappings at those levels but that requirement does not
> >> exist for page table pages pointing to next level. Is not that correct ? Or
> >> I am missing something here ?
> >
> > Just clear the bottom bits off the PFN until you get a PMD or PUD aligned
> > PFN. It's really not hard.
>
> As Mark pointed out earlier that might end up being just a synthetic PFN
> which might not even exist on a given system.

And why would that matter?