[TRIVIAL] Re: document unused pte bits on i386

From: Rusty Trivial Russell
Date: Tue Sep 23 2003 - 22:32:51 EST


From: Ed L Cashin <ecashin@xxxxxxx>

Ed L Cashin <ecashin@xxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi. This small patch documents that bits 9, 10, and 11 are unused by
> the Linux kernel. The IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's
> Manual says that these bits are available for programmer use.
>
> I checked and couldn't see any use of these bits in the Linux kernel.
> If I'm wrong and these bits *are* being used by the linux kernel, a
> comment in include/asm-i386/pgtable.h would be helpful. If they are
> not, this patch confirms for developers that the kernel isn't using
> these bits.

For consistency, there should be the analogous _PAGE_BIT_XXX macros,
too, so here's a replacement patch that has those.



--- trivial-2.6.0-test5-bk10/include/asm-i386/pgtable.h.orig 2003-09-24 12:27:18.000000000 +1000
+++ trivial-2.6.0-test5-bk10/include/asm-i386/pgtable.h 2003-09-24 12:27:18.000000000 +1000
@@ -108,6 +108,9 @@
#define _PAGE_BIT_DIRTY 6
#define _PAGE_BIT_PSE 7 /* 4 MB (or 2MB) page, Pentium+, if present.. */
#define _PAGE_BIT_GLOBAL 8 /* Global TLB entry PPro+ */
+#define _PAGE_BIT_UNUSED1 9 /* available for programmer */
+#define _PAGE_BIT_UNUSED2 10
+#define _PAGE_BIT_UNUSED3 11

#define _PAGE_PRESENT 0x001
#define _PAGE_RW 0x002
@@ -118,6 +121,9 @@
#define _PAGE_DIRTY 0x040
#define _PAGE_PSE 0x080 /* 4 MB (or 2MB) page, Pentium+, if present.. */
#define _PAGE_GLOBAL 0x100 /* Global TLB entry PPro+ */
+#define _PAGE_UNUSED1 0x200 /* available for programmer */
+#define _PAGE_UNUSED2 0x400
+#define _PAGE_UNUSED3 0x800

#define _PAGE_FILE 0x040 /* set:pagecache unset:swap */
#define _PAGE_PROTNONE 0x080 /* If not present */
--
What is this? http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/trivial/
Don't blame me: the Monkey is driving
File: Ed L Cashin <ecashin@xxxxxxx>: Re: [TRIVIAL][PATCH] document unused pte bits on i386
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