Re: [PATCH v3] riscv: Use PUD/P4D/PGD pages for the linear mapping

From: Samuel Holland
Date: Tue Dec 27 2022 - 20:39:18 EST


On 12/13/22 00:02, Alexandre Ghiti wrote:
> During the early page table creation, we used to set the mapping for
> PAGE_OFFSET to the kernel load address: but the kernel load address is
> always offseted by PMD_SIZE which makes it impossible to use PUD/P4D/PGD
> pages as this physical address is not aligned on PUD/P4D/PGD size (whereas
> PAGE_OFFSET is).
>
> But actually we don't have to establish this mapping (ie set va_pa_offset)
> that early in the boot process because:
>
> - first, setup_vm installs a temporary kernel mapping and among other
> things, discovers the system memory,
> - then, setup_vm_final creates the final kernel mapping and takes
> advantage of the discovered system memory to create the linear
> mapping.
>
> During the first phase, we don't know the start of the system memory and
> then until the second phase is finished, we can't use the linear mapping at
> all and phys_to_virt/virt_to_phys translations must not be used because it
> would result in a different translation from the 'real' one once the final
> mapping is installed.
>
> So here we simply delay the initialization of va_pa_offset to after the
> system memory discovery. But to make sure noone uses the linear mapping
> before, we add some guard in the DEBUG_VIRTUAL config.
>
> Finally we can use PUD/P4D/PGD hugepages when possible, which will result
> in a better TLB utilization.
>
> Note that we rely on the firmware to protect itself using PMP.
>
> Signed-off-by: Alexandre Ghiti <alexghiti@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>
> v3:
> - Change the comment about initrd_start VA conversion so that it fits
> ARM64 and RISCV64 (and others in the future if needed), as suggested
> by Rob
>
> v2:
> - Add a comment on why RISCV64 does not need to set initrd_start/end that
> early in the boot process, as asked by Rob
>
> Note that this patch is rebased on top of:
> [PATCH v1 1/1] riscv: mm: call best_map_size many times during linear-mapping
>
> arch/riscv/include/asm/page.h | 16 ++++++++++++++++
> arch/riscv/mm/init.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++------
> arch/riscv/mm/physaddr.c | 16 ++++++++++++++++
> drivers/of/fdt.c | 11 ++++++-----
> 4 files changed, 57 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

This works nicely on D1! Before:
MemTotal: 490680 kB
after:
MemTotal: 492472 kB
and I tested booting with CONFIG_DEBUG_VIRTUAL without issue as well.

Reviewed-by: Samuel Holland <samuel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Samuel Holland <samuel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>