Re: 2.4.10pre13aa1

Benjamin LaHaise (bcrl@redhat.com)
Sun, 23 Sep 2001 14:28:09 -0400


On Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 11:46:18AM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> I don't think that this is a valid argument:
> you are testing on i386 and make design decisions for the architecture
> independant part.

The hook is only needed for x86-like architectures, as all of the risc like
cpus perform the dirty state modification in the page fault handler while
holding the page_table_lock.

> I'd prefer ptep_get_and_clear_and_flush(), then the arch part can do
> what's needed to get the final pte value. (if a single page is modified,
> otherwise the arch can define a suitable mmu_gather)

mmu_gather is the hook. ia64 for instance can create a gather that uses
the hardware tlb flush instruction to shootdown the entry across all cpus
and eliminates the race.

-ben
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