Jamie Lokier wrote:
>
> > > Ben, fancy writing a boot-time test?
> > >
> > I'd never rely on such a test - what if the cpu checks in 99% of the
> > cases, but doesn't handle some cases ('rep movd, everything unaligned,
> > ...'.
>
> A good point. The test results are inconclusive.
>
> > And check the Pentium III erratas. There is one with the tlb
> > that's only triggered if 4 instruction lie in a certain window and all
> > access memory in the same way of the tlb (EFLAGS incorrect if 'andl
> > mask,<memory_addr>' causes page fault)).
>
> Nasty, but I don't see what an obscure and impossible to work around
> processor bug has to do with this thread. It doesn't actually change
> page fault handling, does it?
>
Page fault handling is unchanged, but perhaps there are other races. And
note that these races wouldn't be processor bugs - the spec nowhere
guarantee the behaviour you assume.
Ben tries to prove that the current cpu _never_ sets the dirty bit
without checking the present bit.
A very simple test might be
cpu 1:
cli();
a = 0; b = 0; m = 0;
flush_local_tlb_page(a);
flush_local_tlb_page(b);
flush_local_tlb_page(a);
while(!m);
while (!a && !b);
a = 1;
cpu 2:
<wait>
cli();
both ptes for a and b as writable, not dirty.
m = 1;
udelay(100);
change the pte of a to not present.
wmb();
b = 1;
Now start with variants:
change to read only instead of not present
a and b in the same way of the tlb, in a different way.
change pte with write, change with lock;
.
.
.
But you'll never prove that you tested every combination.
-- Manfred - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 23 2001 - 21:00:13 EST