Re: [PATCH v3 0/4] mm: new function to forbid zeropage mappings for a process

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 10/22/2014 01:09 PM, Dominik Dingel wrote:
> s390 has the special notion of storage keys which are some sort of page flags
> associated with physical pages and live outside of direct addressable memory.
> These storage keys can be queried and changed with a special set of instructions.
> The mentioned instructions behave quite nicely under virtualization, if there is: 
> - an invalid pte, then the instructions will work on memory in the host page table
> - a valid pte, then the instructions will work with the real storage key
> 
> Thanks to Martin with his software reference and dirty bit tracking,
> the kernel does not issue any storage key instructions as now a 
> software based approach will be taken, on the other hand distributions 
> in the wild are currently using them.
> 
> However, for virtualized guests we still have a problem with guest pages 
> mapped to zero pages and the kernel same page merging.  
> With each one multiple guest pages will point to the same physical page
> and share the same storage key.
> 
> Let's fix this by introducing a new function which s390 will define to
> forbid new zero page mappings.  If the guest issues a storage key related 
> instruction we flag the mm_struct, drop existing zero page mappings
> and unmerge the guest memory.
> 
> v2 -> v3:
>  - Clearing up patch description Patch 3/4
>  - removing unnecessary flag in mmu_context (Paolo)

... and zero the mm_use_skey flag correctly, too. :)

> v1 -> v2: 
>  - Following Dave and Paolo suggestion removing the vma flag

Thanks, the patches look good.  I expect that they will either go in
through the s390 tree, or come in via Christian.

If the latter, Martin, please reply with your Acked-by.

Paolo
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/