4 David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com>
6 This document describes the cache/tlb flushing interfaces called
7 by the Linux VM subsystem. It enumerates over each interface,
8 describes it's intended purpose, and what side effect is expected
9 after the interface is invoked.
11 The side effects described below are stated for a uniprocessor
12 implementation, and what is to happen on that single processor. The
13 SMP cases are a simple extension, in that you just extend the
14 definition such that the side effect for a particular interface occurs
15 on all processors in the system. Don't let this scare you into
16 thinking SMP cache/tlb flushing must be so inefficient, this is in
17 fact an area where many optimizations are possible. For example,
18 if it can be proven that a user address space has never executed
19 on a cpu (see vma->cpu_vm_mask), one need not perform a flush
20 for this address space on that cpu.
22 First, the TLB flushing interfaces, since they are the simplest. The
23 "TLB" is abstracted under Linux as something the cpu uses to cache
24 virtual-->physical address translations obtained from the software
25 page tables. Meaning that if the software page tables change, it is
26 possible for stale translations to exist in this "TLB" cache.
27 Therefore when software page table changes occur, the kernel will
28 invoke one of the following flush methods _after_ the page table
31 1) void flush_tlb_all(void)
33 The most severe flush of all. After this interface runs,
34 any previous page table modification whatsoever will be
37 This is usually invoked when the kernel page tables are
38 changed, since such translations are "global" in nature.
40 2) void flush_tlb_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)
42 This interface flushes an entire user address space from
43 the TLB. After running, this interface must make sure that
44 any previous page table modifications for the address space
45 'mm' will be visible to the cpu. That is, after running,
46 there will be no entries in the TLB for 'mm'.
48 This interface is used to handle whole address space
49 page table operations such as what happens during
52 3) void flush_tlb_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
53 unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
55 Here we are flushing a specific range of (user) virtual
56 address translations from the TLB. After running, this
57 interface must make sure that any previous page table
58 modifications for the address space 'vma->vm_mm' in the range
59 'start' to 'end-1' will be visible to the cpu. That is, after
60 running, here will be no entries in the TLB for 'mm' for
61 virtual addresses in the range 'start' to 'end-1'.
63 The "vma" is the backing store being used for the region.
64 Primarily, this is used for munmap() type operations.
66 The interface is provided in hopes that the port can find
67 a suitably efficient method for removing multiple page
68 sized translations from the TLB, instead of having the kernel
69 call flush_tlb_page (see below) for each entry which may be
72 4) void flush_tlb_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
74 This time we need to remove the PAGE_SIZE sized translation
75 from the TLB. The 'vma' is the backing structure used by
76 Linux to keep track of mmap'd regions for a process, the
77 address space is available via vma->vm_mm. Also, one may
78 test (vma->vm_flags & VM_EXEC) to see if this region is
79 executable (and thus could be in the 'instruction TLB' in
80 split-tlb type setups).
82 After running, this interface must make sure that any previous
83 page table modification for address space 'vma->vm_mm' for
84 user virtual address 'addr' will be visible to the cpu. That
85 is, after running, there will be no entries in the TLB for
86 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual address 'addr'.
88 This is used primarily during fault processing.
90 5) void flush_tlb_pgtables(struct mm_struct *mm,
91 unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
93 The software page tables for address space 'mm' for virtual
94 addresses in the range 'start' to 'end-1' are being torn down.
96 Some platforms cache the lowest level of the software page tables
97 in a linear virtually mapped array, to make TLB miss processing
98 more efficient. On such platforms, since the TLB is caching the
99 software page table structure, it needs to be flushed when parts
100 of the software page table tree are unlinked/freed.
102 Sparc64 is one example of a platform which does this.
104 Usually, when munmap()'ing an area of user virtual address
105 space, the kernel leaves the page table parts around and just
106 marks the individual pte's as invalid. However, if very large
107 portions of the address space are unmapped, the kernel frees up
108 those portions of the software page tables to prevent potential
109 excessive kernel memory usage caused by erratic mmap/mmunmap
110 sequences. It is at these times that flush_tlb_pgtables will
113 6) void update_mmu_cache(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
114 unsigned long address, pte_t pte)
116 At the end of every page fault, this routine is invoked to
117 tell the architecture specific code that a translation
118 described by "pte" now exists at virtual address "address"
119 for address space "vma->vm_mm", in the software page tables.
121 A port may use this information in any way it so chooses.
122 For example, it could use this event to pre-load TLB
123 translations for software managed TLB configurations.
124 The sparc64 port currently does this.
126 7) void tlb_migrate_finish(struct mm_struct *mm)
128 This interface is called at the end of an explicit
129 process migration. This interface provides a hook
130 to allow a platform to update TLB or context-specific
131 information for the address space.
133 The ia64 sn2 platform is one example of a platform
134 that uses this interface.
136 8) void lazy_mmu_prot_update(pte_t pte)
137 This interface is called whenever the protection on
138 any user PTEs change. This interface provides a notification
139 to architecture specific code to take appropriate action.
142 Next, we have the cache flushing interfaces. In general, when Linux
143 is changing an existing virtual-->physical mapping to a new value,
144 the sequence will be in one of the following forms:
146 1) flush_cache_mm(mm);
147 change_all_page_tables_of(mm);
150 2) flush_cache_range(vma, start, end);
151 change_range_of_page_tables(mm, start, end);
152 flush_tlb_range(vma, start, end);
154 3) flush_cache_page(vma, addr, pfn);
155 set_pte(pte_pointer, new_pte_val);
156 flush_tlb_page(vma, addr);
158 The cache level flush will always be first, because this allows
159 us to properly handle systems whose caches are strict and require
160 a virtual-->physical translation to exist for a virtual address
161 when that virtual address is flushed from the cache. The HyperSparc
162 cpu is one such cpu with this attribute.
164 The cache flushing routines below need only deal with cache flushing
165 to the extent that it is necessary for a particular cpu. Mostly,
166 these routines must be implemented for cpus which have virtually
167 indexed caches which must be flushed when virtual-->physical
168 translations are changed or removed. So, for example, the physically
169 indexed physically tagged caches of IA32 processors have no need to
170 implement these interfaces since the caches are fully synchronized
171 and have no dependency on translation information.
173 Here are the routines, one by one:
175 1) void flush_cache_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)
177 This interface flushes an entire user address space from
178 the caches. That is, after running, there will be no cache
179 lines associated with 'mm'.
181 This interface is used to handle whole address space
182 page table operations such as what happens during
183 fork, exit, and exec.
185 2) void flush_cache_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
186 unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
188 Here we are flushing a specific range of (user) virtual
189 addresses from the cache. After running, there will be no
190 entries in the cache for 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual addresses in
191 the range 'start' to 'end-1'.
193 The "vma" is the backing store being used for the region.
194 Primarily, this is used for munmap() type operations.
196 The interface is provided in hopes that the port can find
197 a suitably efficient method for removing multiple page
198 sized regions from the cache, instead of having the kernel
199 call flush_cache_page (see below) for each entry which may be
202 3) void flush_cache_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr, unsigned long pfn)
204 This time we need to remove a PAGE_SIZE sized range
205 from the cache. The 'vma' is the backing structure used by
206 Linux to keep track of mmap'd regions for a process, the
207 address space is available via vma->vm_mm. Also, one may
208 test (vma->vm_flags & VM_EXEC) to see if this region is
209 executable (and thus could be in the 'instruction cache' in
210 "Harvard" type cache layouts).
212 The 'pfn' indicates the physical page frame (shift this value
213 left by PAGE_SHIFT to get the physical address) that 'addr'
214 translates to. It is this mapping which should be removed from
217 After running, there will be no entries in the cache for
218 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual address 'addr' which translates
221 This is used primarily during fault processing.
223 4) void flush_cache_kmaps(void)
225 This routine need only be implemented if the platform utilizes
226 highmem. It will be called right before all of the kmaps
229 After running, there will be no entries in the cache for
230 the kernel virtual address range PKMAP_ADDR(0) to
231 PKMAP_ADDR(LAST_PKMAP).
233 This routing should be implemented in asm/highmem.h
235 5) void flush_cache_vmap(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
236 void flush_cache_vunmap(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
238 Here in these two interfaces we are flushing a specific range
239 of (kernel) virtual addresses from the cache. After running,
240 there will be no entries in the cache for the kernel address
241 space for virtual addresses in the range 'start' to 'end-1'.
243 The first of these two routines is invoked after map_vm_area()
244 has installed the page table entries. The second is invoked
245 before unmap_vm_area() deletes the page table entries.
247 There exists another whole class of cpu cache issues which currently
248 require a whole different set of interfaces to handle properly.
249 The biggest problem is that of virtual aliasing in the data cache
252 Is your port susceptible to virtual aliasing in it's D-cache?
253 Well, if your D-cache is virtually indexed, is larger in size than
254 PAGE_SIZE, and does not prevent multiple cache lines for the same
255 physical address from existing at once, you have this problem.
257 If your D-cache has this problem, first define asm/shmparam.h SHMLBA
258 properly, it should essentially be the size of your virtually
259 addressed D-cache (or if the size is variable, the largest possible
260 size). This setting will force the SYSv IPC layer to only allow user
261 processes to mmap shared memory at address which are a multiple of
264 NOTE: This does not fix shared mmaps, check out the sparc64 port for
265 one way to solve this (in particular SPARC_FLAG_MMAPSHARED).
267 Next, you have to solve the D-cache aliasing issue for all
268 other cases. Please keep in mind that fact that, for a given page
269 mapped into some user address space, there is always at least one more
270 mapping, that of the kernel in it's linear mapping starting at
271 PAGE_OFFSET. So immediately, once the first user maps a given
272 physical page into its address space, by implication the D-cache
273 aliasing problem has the potential to exist since the kernel already
274 maps this page at its virtual address.
276 void copy_user_page(void *to, void *from, unsigned long addr, struct page *page)
277 void clear_user_page(void *to, unsigned long addr, struct page *page)
279 These two routines store data in user anonymous or COW
280 pages. It allows a port to efficiently avoid D-cache alias
281 issues between userspace and the kernel.
283 For example, a port may temporarily map 'from' and 'to' to
284 kernel virtual addresses during the copy. The virtual address
285 for these two pages is chosen in such a way that the kernel
286 load/store instructions happen to virtual addresses which are
287 of the same "color" as the user mapping of the page. Sparc64
288 for example, uses this technique.
290 The 'addr' parameter tells the virtual address where the
291 user will ultimately have this page mapped, and the 'page'
292 parameter gives a pointer to the struct page of the target.
294 If D-cache aliasing is not an issue, these two routines may
295 simply call memcpy/memset directly and do nothing more.
297 void flush_dcache_page(struct page *page)
299 Any time the kernel writes to a page cache page, _OR_
300 the kernel is about to read from a page cache page and
301 user space shared/writable mappings of this page potentially
302 exist, this routine is called.
304 NOTE: This routine need only be called for page cache pages
305 which can potentially ever be mapped into the address
306 space of a user process. So for example, VFS layer code
307 handling vfs symlinks in the page cache need not call
308 this interface at all.
310 The phrase "kernel writes to a page cache page" means,
311 specifically, that the kernel executes store instructions
312 that dirty data in that page at the page->virtual mapping
313 of that page. It is important to flush here to handle
314 D-cache aliasing, to make sure these kernel stores are
315 visible to user space mappings of that page.
317 The corollary case is just as important, if there are users
318 which have shared+writable mappings of this file, we must make
319 sure that kernel reads of these pages will see the most recent
320 stores done by the user.
322 If D-cache aliasing is not an issue, this routine may
323 simply be defined as a nop on that architecture.
325 There is a bit set aside in page->flags (PG_arch_1) as
326 "architecture private". The kernel guarantees that,
327 for pagecache pages, it will clear this bit when such
328 a page first enters the pagecache.
330 This allows these interfaces to be implemented much more
331 efficiently. It allows one to "defer" (perhaps indefinitely)
332 the actual flush if there are currently no user processes
333 mapping this page. See sparc64's flush_dcache_page and
334 update_mmu_cache implementations for an example of how to go
337 The idea is, first at flush_dcache_page() time, if
338 page->mapping->i_mmap is an empty tree and ->i_mmap_nonlinear
339 an empty list, just mark the architecture private page flag bit.
340 Later, in update_mmu_cache(), a check is made of this flag bit,
341 and if set the flush is done and the flag bit is cleared.
343 IMPORTANT NOTE: It is often important, if you defer the flush,
344 that the actual flush occurs on the same CPU
345 as did the cpu stores into the page to make it
346 dirty. Again, see sparc64 for examples of how
349 void copy_to_user_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page,
350 unsigned long user_vaddr,
351 void *dst, void *src, int len)
352 void copy_from_user_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page,
353 unsigned long user_vaddr,
354 void *dst, void *src, int len)
355 When the kernel needs to copy arbitrary data in and out
356 of arbitrary user pages (f.e. for ptrace()) it will use
359 Any necessary cache flushing or other coherency operations
360 that need to occur should happen here. If the processor's
361 instruction cache does not snoop cpu stores, it is very
362 likely that you will need to flush the instruction cache
363 for copy_to_user_page().
365 void flush_anon_page(struct page *page, unsigned long vmaddr)
366 When the kernel needs to access the contents of an anonymous
367 page, it calls this function (currently only
368 get_user_pages()). Note: flush_dcache_page() deliberately
369 doesn't work for an anonymous page. The default
370 implementation is a nop (and should remain so for all coherent
371 architectures). For incoherent architectures, it should flush
372 the cache of the page at vmaddr in the current user process.
374 void flush_kernel_dcache_page(struct page *page)
375 When the kernel needs to modify a user page is has obtained
376 with kmap, it calls this function after all modifications are
377 complete (but before kunmapping it) to bring the underlying
378 page up to date. It is assumed here that the user has no
379 incoherent cached copies (i.e. the original page was obtained
380 from a mechanism like get_user_pages()). The default
381 implementation is a nop and should remain so on all coherent
382 architectures. On incoherent architectures, this should flush
383 the kernel cache for page (using page_address(page)).
386 void flush_icache_range(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
387 When the kernel stores into addresses that it will execute
388 out of (eg when loading modules), this function is called.
390 If the icache does not snoop stores then this routine will need
393 void flush_icache_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page)
394 All the functionality of flush_icache_page can be implemented in
395 flush_dcache_page and update_mmu_cache. In 2.7 the hope is to
396 remove this interface completely.