[PATCH 6/8] x86/mm: Preallocate all PAE page tables

From: Dave Hansen
Date: Mon Apr 14 2025 - 13:35:28 EST



From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Finally, move away from having PAE kernels share any PMDs across
processes.

This was already the default on PTI kernels which are the common
case.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---

b/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c | 12 +++---------
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff -puN arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c~simplify-PREALLOCATED_PMDS-3 arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c~simplify-PREALLOCATED_PMDS-3 2025-04-09 11:49:42.035971354 -0700
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c 2025-04-09 11:49:42.038971465 -0700
@@ -80,16 +80,11 @@ struct mm_struct *pgd_page_get_mm(struct

static void pgd_ctor(struct mm_struct *mm, pgd_t *pgd)
{
- /* If the pgd points to a shared pagetable level (either the
- ptes in non-PAE, or shared PMD in PAE), then just copy the
- references from swapper_pg_dir. */
- if (CONFIG_PGTABLE_LEVELS == 2 ||
- (CONFIG_PGTABLE_LEVELS == 3 && SHARED_KERNEL_PMD) ||
- CONFIG_PGTABLE_LEVELS >= 4) {
+ /* PAE preallocates all its PMDs. No cloning needed. */
+ if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_X86_PAE))
clone_pgd_range(pgd + KERNEL_PGD_BOUNDARY,
swapper_pg_dir + KERNEL_PGD_BOUNDARY,
KERNEL_PGD_PTRS);
- }

/* List used to sync kernel mapping updates */
pgd_set_mm(pgd, mm);
@@ -122,8 +117,7 @@ static void pgd_dtor(pgd_t *pgd)
* all 4 top-level entries are used almost immediately in a
* new process's life, we just pre-populate them here.
*/
-#define PREALLOCATED_PMDS (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_PTI) ? \
- PTRS_PER_PGD : KERNEL_PGD_BOUNDARY)
+#define PREALLOCATED_PMDS PTRS_PER_PGD
#define MAX_PREALLOCATED_PMDS PTRS_PER_PGD

/*
_