WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

Re: [Xen-devel] Kernel bug from 3.0 (was phy disks and vifs timing out i

To: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Kernel bug from 3.0 (was phy disks and vifs timing out in DomU)
From: Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 08:42:52 +0100
Cc: Todd Deshane <todd.deshane@xxxxxxx>, "xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@xxxxxxxx>, David Vrabel <david.vrabel@xxxxxxxxxx>, Anthony Wright <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:43:42 -0700
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <20110831170711.GB13642@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
Organization: Citrix Systems, Inc.
References: <4E31820C.5030200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <1311870512.24408.153.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <4E3266DE.9000606@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20110803152841.GA2860@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <4E4E3957.1040007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20110819125615.GA26558@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <4E56B132.9050708@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20110826142606.GA25511@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <20110826144438.GA24836@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <4E5E6843.7050206@xxxxxxxxxx> <20110831170711.GB13642@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 2011-08-31 at 18:07 +0100, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 05:58:43PM +0100, David Vrabel wrote:
> > On 26/08/11 15:44, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > > 
> > > So while I am still looking at the hypervisor code to figure out why
> > > it would give me [when trying to map a grant page]:
> > > 
> > > (XEN) mm.c:3846:d0 Could not find L1 PTE for address fbb42000
> > 
> > It is failing in guest_map_l1e() because the page for the vmalloc'd
> > virtual address PTEs is not present.
> > 
> > The test that fails is:
> > 
> > (l2e_get_flags(l2e) & (_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_PSE)) != _PAGE_PRESENT
> > 
> > I think this is because the GNTTABOP_map_grant_ref hypercall is done
> > when task->active_mm != &init_mm and alloc_vm_area() only adds PTEs into
> > init_mm so when Xen looks in the page tables it doesn't find the entries
> > because they're not there yet.
> > 
> > Putting a call to vmalloc_sync_all() after create_vm_area() and before
> > the hypercall makes it work for me.  Classic Xen kernels used to have
> > such a call.
> 
> That sounds quite reasonable.

I was wondering why upstream was missing the vmalloc_sync_all() in
alloc_vm_area() since the out-of-tree kernels did have it and the
function was added by us. I found this:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=commitdiff;h=ef691947d8a3d479e67652312783aedcf629320a

commit ef691947d8a3d479e67652312783aedcf629320a
Author: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date:   Wed Dec 1 15:45:48 2010 -0800

    vmalloc: remove vmalloc_sync_all() from alloc_vm_area()
    
    There's no need for it: it will get faulted into the current pagetable
    as needed.
    
    Signed-off-by: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@xxxxxxxxxx>

The flaw in the reasoning here is that you cannot take a kernel fault
while processing a hypercall, so hypercall arguments must have been
faulted in beforehand and that is what the sync_all was for.

It's probably fair to say that the Xen specific caller should take care
of that Xen-specific requirement rather than pushing it into common
code. On the other hand Xen is the only user and creating a Xen specific
helper/wrapper seems a bit pointless.

Ian.

> > 
> > This presumably works on some systems/configuration and not others
> > depending on what else is using vmalloc(). i.e., if another kernel
> > thread (?) calls vmalloc() etc. then there will be a page for vmalloc
> > area PTEs and it will work.
> > 
> > I'll try and post a patch tomorrow.
> > 
> > Thanks to Ian Campbell for pointing me in the right direction.
> 
> Great! Thanks for hunting this one down.
> > 
> > David



_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel