Re: arm64 physmap (was Re: [kernel-hardening] [PATCH 4/6] Protectable Memory)

From: Kees Cook
Date: Wed Feb 14 2018 - 14:36:13 EST


On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 11:29 AM, Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Why does using finer granularity on the physmap degrade performance? I
> assume TLB pressure, but what is heavily using that area? (I must not
> be understanding what physmap actually gets used for -- I thought it
> was just a convenience to have a 1:1 virt/phys map for some lookups?)

Jann has sorted me out: it's that physmap isn't an _alias_ for the
buddy allocator memory areas; it's used directly.

-Kees

--
Kees Cook
Pixel Security