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Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] turn off writable page tables

To: Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] turn off writable page tables
From: Keir Fraser <Keir.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:40:52 +0100
Cc: Ian Pratt <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Andrew Theurer <habanero@xxxxxxxxxx>, xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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On 26 Jul 2006, at 09:18, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:

I'd like to make sure there's no 'dumb stuff' happening, and the
writeable pagetables isn't being used erroneously where we don't expect
it (hence crippling the scores), and that its actually functioning as
intended i.e. that we get one fault to unhook, and then a fault causing
a rehook once we move to the next page in the fork.

If you write a little test program that dirties a large chunk of memory just before the fork, we should see writeable pagetables winning easily.

Just an idea:  Any chance mm_pin() and mm_unpin() cause this?  The bulk
page table updates for the new process created by fork() are not seen by
xen anyway I think.  The first schedule of the new process triggers
pinning, i.e. r/o mapping and verification ...

The batching should still benefit the write-protecting of the parent pagetables, which are visible to Xen during fork() (since the fork() runs on them!).

Hence the suggestion of dirtying pages before the fork -- that will ensure that lots of PTEs are definitely writable, and so they will have to be updated to make them read-only.

 -- Keir


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