Re: [Xen-devel] about domU pagetable

["余上" <yusunn@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I have checked the code again . The basic logic is as you said .
Firstly the topmost pagetable(it may be l4,l3 and so on) is pinned .
Then the pinning hpyercall will call get_page_* family , which will
set the PGT flags and call alloc_page_type , the latter will setup the
internal nodes , again , sets the corresponding PGT falgs .

Many thanks
yushang

2008/2/24, Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> > As I know , dom0 pagetable gets its PGT flags explicitly set in
>  > construct_dom0 , for example:
>  >
>  > page->u.inuse.type_info |= PGT_l3_page_table
>  >
>  > but how about domU's ? Where it get set ? By means of hypercall ? If
>  > so , which one ?
>
>
> construct_dom0 scares me a little :-)
>
>  I'll try and give you a quick overview of how this all works, based on my
>  current understanding.  I believe this to all be correct but bear in mind I
>  might make mistakes.  Feel free to ask questions about anything.
>
>  Pages are identified as being pagetables when either a) they are loaded into
>  CR3, the pagetable base register (on x86_32) b) they are referenced as part
>  of an existing pagetable tree or c) they are pinned with pagetable type.
>
>  The initial state of a domain includes a set of bootstrap pagetables which 
> map
>  enough memory for the domain to get itself started.  Once the domain is
>  running it'll probably build itself new pagetables.  The process of creating
>  the bootstrap pagetables is being done in construct_dom0 for the initial
>  domain (dom0 itself).  For other Xen domains, they are built in the userspace
>  domain builder tool.  The code of this tool is different to when I last
>  looked in detail but I think the pagetables are built in
>  tools/libxc/xc_dom_x86.c and then pinned using hypercalls in
>  tools/libxc/xc_dom_boot.c.
>
>  This is all just to build minimal pagetables to get the domain up and 
> running.
>  Once the domain is running, it'll probably create new and larger pagetables.
>  The will be validated by Xen at runtime:
>
>  When a new pagetable base pointer is loaded into CR3, the page pointed to and
>  all pages that are also part of that pagetable tree will be validated and
>  assigned the right types.  A domain may explicitly request that a pagetable
>  (even one that isn't loaded into CR3) is validated by "pinning" it.  Xen sets
>  the type when the table is pinned so that it won't have to check it every
>  time the pagetable is loaded into CR3.  This improves performance.  It won't
>  let the guest change the contents of the pagetable whilst it's pinned, so
>  this is safe.
>
>  The leaf entries of a pagetable can be written to directly by a guest using
>  the "writable pagetables" API.  The internal nodes of a pagetable (the ones
>  that just point to other pagetable pages) cannot (if i remember right!) be
>  written directly like this, they have to be set using a hypercall.
>
>  Cheers,
>  Mark
>
>
>  --
>  Push Me Pull You - Distributed SCM tool 
> (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~maw48/pmpu/)
>

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