Re: [PATCH v8 00/20] Convert x86 & arm64 to use generic page walk

Steven Price
2019-04-17T14:33:32Z

On 12/04/2019 15:44, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 4/10/19 7:56 AM, Steven Price wrote:
>> Gentle ping: who can take this? Is there anything blocking this series?
>
> First of all, I really appreciate that you tried this. Every open-coded
> page walk has a set of common pitfalls, but is pretty unbounded in what
> kinds of bugs it can contain. I think this at least gets us to the
> point where some of those pitfalls won't happen. That's cool, but I'm a
> worried that it hasn't gotten easier in the end.

My plan was to implement the generic infrastructure and then work to
remove the per-arch code for ptdump debugfs where possible. This patch
series doesn't actually get that far because I wanted to get some
confidence that the general approach would be accepted.

> Linus also had some strong opinions in the past on how page walks should
> be written. He needs to have a look before we go much further.

Fair enough. I'll post the initial work I've done on unifying the
x86/arm64 ptdump code - the diffstat is a bit nicer on that - but
there's still work to be done so I'm posting just as an RFC.

Thanks,

Steve