** Reply to message from Jeff Hartmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 24 Jan
2001 14:15:32 -0700
> Pages with multiple mappings aren't really supported by the Intel ia32
> architecture. The trick you do above works, but is strongly discouraged
> by the Intel documentation. The documentation says that if you do this
> with UCWC memory, it won't work (and will result in undefined processor
> behavior.) My experiments with the PAT seem to agree with the
> documentation.
Is it still a problem even we never access the memory through the non-UCWC
memory?
> We have to remove the kernel page table mappings. (Convert the 4MB pages
> to individual pte's, then change the individual pte so its pgprot value
> is correct.)
That sounds like an incredible amount of work! Are you going to support this
in your code? I wouldn't even know how to begin implementing that.
> When you allocate memory in the kernel, you OWN it. Its not mapped into
> a user space process unless you put it there. I have to point out that
> this interface requires the user to insure these pages are never ever
> swapped, or mapped cached. This isn't a huge restriction, since we
> aren't providing a user land interface. If we try to handle all/some of
> these cases in the kernel, it becomes a very large problem. We would
> have to add arch specific bits for special cache handling, Do smp cache
> flushes all over the place, etc. Its really not worth it.
Ok, so what are you going to provide? All I need is a method to access a
particular physical page, whether it's part of real RAM or not, in an UCWC
manner. Can you give me a hint as to how that cability can be provided?
--
Timur Tabi - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Interactive Silicon - http://www.interactivesi.com
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