Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 00 of 36] x86/paravirt: groundwork for 64-bit Xen support

Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2008-06-30T23:05:07Z

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> -tip auto-testing found pagetable corruption (CPA self-test failure):
>
> [ 32.956015] CPA self-test:
> [ 32.958822] 4k 2048 large 508 gb 0 x 2556[ffff880000000000-ffff88003fe00000] miss 0
> [ 32.964000] CPA ffff88001d54e000: bad pte 1d4000e3
> [ 32.968000] CPA ffff88001d54e000: unexpected level 2
> [ 32.972000] CPA ffff880022c5d000: bad pte 22c000e3
> [ 32.976000] CPA ffff880022c5d000: unexpected level 2
> [ 32.980000] CPA ffff8800200ce000: bad pte 200000e3
> [ 32.984000] CPA ffff8800200ce000: unexpected level 2
> [ 32.988000] CPA ffff8800210f0000: bad pte 210000e3
>
> config and full log can be found at:
>
> http://redhat.com/~mingo/misc/config-Mon_Jun_30_11_11_51_CEST_2008.bad
> http://redhat.com/~mingo/misc/log-Mon_Jun_30_11_11_51_CEST_2008.bad
>
> i've pushed that tree out into tip/tmp.xen-64bit.Mon_Jun_30_11_11. The
> only new item in that tree over a well-tested base is x86/xen-64bit, so
> i've taken it out again.
>

Phew. OK, I've worked this out. Short version is that's it's a false
alarm, and there was no real failure here. Long version:

* I changed the code to create the physical mapping pagetables to
reuse any existing mapping rather than replace it. Specifically,
reusing an pud pointed to by the pgd caused this symptom to appear.
* The specific PUD being reused is the one created statically in
head_64.S, which creates an initial 1GB mapping.
* That mapping doesn't have _PAGE_GLOBAL set on it, due to the
inconsistency between __PAGE_* and PAGE_*.
* The CPA test attempts to clear _PAGE_GLOBAL, and then checks to
see that the resulting range is 1) shattered into 4k pages, and 2)
has no _PAGE_GLOBAL.
* However, since it didn't have _PAGE_GLOBAL on that range to start
with, change_page_attr_clear() had nothing to do, and didn't
bother shattering the range,
* resulting in the reported messages

The simple fix is to set _PAGE_GLOBAL in level2_ident_pgt.

An additional fix to make CPA testing more robust by using some other
pagetable bit (one of the unused available-to-software ones). This
would solve spurious CPA test warnings under Xen which uses _PAGE_GLOBAL
for its own purposes (ie, not under guest control).

Also, we should revisit the use of _PAGE_GLOBAL in asm-x86/pgtable.h,
and use it consistently, and drop MAKE_GLOBAL. The first time I
proposed it it caused breakages in the very early CPA code; with luck
that's all fixed now.

Anyway, the simple fix below. I'll put together RFC patches for the
other suggestions. I also split the originating patch into tiny, tiny
bisectable pieces.

Signed-off-by: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@citrix.com>

---
arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

===================================================================
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S
@@ -374,7 +374,7 @@
/* Since I easily can, map the first 1G.
* Don't set NX because code runs from these pages.
*/
- PMDS(0, __PAGE_KERNEL_LARGE_EXEC, PTRS_PER_PMD)
+ PMDS(0, __PAGE_KERNEL_LARGE_EXEC | _PAGE_GLOBAL, PTRS_PER_PMD)

NEXT_PAGE(level2_kernel_pgt)
/*