Re: Direct access to hardware

From: Krzysztof Halasa (khc@intrepid.pm.waw.pl)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 16:58:55 EST


James Sutherland <jas88@cam.ac.uk> writes:

> On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
>
> > Which is exactly the point. The hard drives should be checking for
> > invalid ATA commands in hardware, right in the drive, preventing
> > damage from bad commands. Putting a filter into the kernel is not
> > the right fix.
>
> As with some of the Intel CPU bugs, the problem is NOT "invalid ATA
> commands" - it's a matter of VALID commands which are dangerous. FDIV on
> early Pentiums isn't an invalid instruction - it just produces the wrong
> results at times. So the SOFTWARE must do something to avoid this - either
> that, or you need to replace the hardware, which isn't desirable. You do
> something in the OS to prevent these problem commands being used.

So what does the kernel (can) do to prevent this problem on defective
pentiums?

-- 
Krzysztof Halasa
Network Administrator

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