Re: linux 2.0 PTE bug

From: Jason Thorpe (thorpejat_private)
Date: Tue May 26 1998 - 13:40:18 PDT

  • Next message: Gregory Neil Shapiro: "about sendmail 8.8.8 HELO hole"

    On Mon, 25 May 1998 13:51:42 +0200
     XXX_p6mip300 <p6mip300at_private> wrote:
    
     > How to solve it ?
     > Well, we could swap the pgd / pmd / pte, but i really don't know
     > if it is possible or what.
    
    ...or you want something like lazy page table allocation.  As I recall,
    the Linux VM code has a "flat" model, whereas Mach VM (the basis of the
    VM system used by 4.4BSD and its derivatives) and UVM (NetBSD's new VM
    system) have a 2-layer model; the upper layer holds mappings that can
    coalesce to save space, and the lower layer holds the (redundant) physical
    mappings (in the format used by the MMU/software TLB reload engine/whatever).
    
    This lower layer is able to allocate page tables or other physical mapping
    resources "lazily", as mappings for actual physical pages are entered by
    the upper layer.
    
    This lower layer is also free to "forget" mappings at any time, so when
    memory is in extremely short supply, the page tables can simply be freed
    to the system (and that process's page table base pointer set to some default
    empty page table), and when that process runs again, the mappings are
    simply rebuilt as the page faults occur from the (compact) info stored in
    the upper layer.
    
    Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpejat_private
    NASA Ames Research Center                            Home: +1 408 866 1912
    NAS: M/S 258-5                                       Work: +1 650 604 0935
    Moffett Field, CA 94035                             Pager: +1 650 428 6939
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 13:54:37 PDT