1================================== 2Cache and TLB Flushing Under Linux 3================================== 4 5:Author: David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com> 6 7This document describes the cache/tlb flushing interfaces called 8by the Linux VM subsystem. It enumerates over each interface, 9describes its intended purpose, and what side effect is expected 10after the interface is invoked. 11 12The side effects described below are stated for a uniprocessor 13implementation, and what is to happen on that single processor. The 14SMP cases are a simple extension, in that you just extend the 15definition such that the side effect for a particular interface occurs 16on all processors in the system. Don't let this scare you into 17thinking SMP cache/tlb flushing must be so inefficient, this is in 18fact an area where many optimizations are possible. For example, 19if it can be proven that a user address space has never executed 20on a cpu (see mm_cpumask()), one need not perform a flush 21for this address space on that cpu. 22 23First, the TLB flushing interfaces, since they are the simplest. The 24"TLB" is abstracted under Linux as something the cpu uses to cache 25virtual-->physical address translations obtained from the software 26page tables. Meaning that if the software page tables change, it is 27possible for stale translations to exist in this "TLB" cache. 28Therefore when software page table changes occur, the kernel will 29invoke one of the following flush methods _after_ the page table 30changes occur: 31 321) ``void flush_tlb_all(void)`` 33 34 The most severe flush of all. After this interface runs, 35 any previous page table modification whatsoever will be 36 visible to the cpu. 37 38 This is usually invoked when the kernel page tables are 39 changed, since such translations are "global" in nature. 40 412) ``void flush_tlb_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)`` 42 43 This interface flushes an entire user address space from 44 the TLB. After running, this interface must make sure that 45 any previous page table modifications for the address space 46 'mm' will be visible to the cpu. That is, after running, 47 there will be no entries in the TLB for 'mm'. 48 49 This interface is used to handle whole address space 50 page table operations such as what happens during 51 fork, and exec. 52 533) ``void flush_tlb_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma, 54 unsigned long start, unsigned long end)`` 55 56 Here we are flushing a specific range of (user) virtual 57 address translations from the TLB. After running, this 58 interface must make sure that any previous page table 59 modifications for the address space 'vma->vm_mm' in the range 60 'start' to 'end-1' will be visible to the cpu. That is, after 61 running, there will be no entries in the TLB for 'mm' for 62 virtual addresses in the range 'start' to 'end-1'. 63 64 The "vma" is the backing store being used for the region. 65 Primarily, this is used for munmap() type operations. 66 67 The interface is provided in hopes that the port can find 68 a suitably efficient method for removing multiple page 69 sized translations from the TLB, instead of having the kernel 70 call flush_tlb_page (see below) for each entry which may be 71 modified. 72 734) ``void flush_tlb_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)`` 74 75 This time we need to remove the PAGE_SIZE sized translation 76 from the TLB. The 'vma' is the backing structure used by 77 Linux to keep track of mmap'd regions for a process, the 78 address space is available via vma->vm_mm. Also, one may 79 test (vma->vm_flags & VM_EXEC) to see if this region is 80 executable (and thus could be in the 'instruction TLB' in 81 split-tlb type setups). 82 83 After running, this interface must make sure that any previous 84 page table modification for address space 'vma->vm_mm' for 85 user virtual address 'addr' will be visible to the cpu. That 86 is, after running, there will be no entries in the TLB for 87 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual address 'addr'. 88 89 This is used primarily during fault processing. 90 915) ``void update_mmu_cache(struct vm_area_struct *vma, 92 unsigned long address, pte_t *ptep)`` 93 94 At the end of every page fault, this routine is invoked to 95 tell the architecture specific code that a translation 96 now exists at virtual address "address" for address space 97 "vma->vm_mm", in the software page tables. 98 99 A port may use this information in any way it so chooses. 100 For example, it could use this event to pre-load TLB 101 translations for software managed TLB configurations. 102 The sparc64 port currently does this. 103 1046) ``void tlb_migrate_finish(struct mm_struct *mm)`` 105 106 This interface is called at the end of an explicit 107 process migration. This interface provides a hook 108 to allow a platform to update TLB or context-specific 109 information for the address space. 110 111 The ia64 sn2 platform is one example of a platform 112 that uses this interface. 113 114Next, we have the cache flushing interfaces. In general, when Linux 115is changing an existing virtual-->physical mapping to a new value, 116the sequence will be in one of the following forms:: 117 118 1) flush_cache_mm(mm); 119 change_all_page_tables_of(mm); 120 flush_tlb_mm(mm); 121 122 2) flush_cache_range(vma, start, end); 123 change_range_of_page_tables(mm, start, end); 124 flush_tlb_range(vma, start, end); 125 126 3) flush_cache_page(vma, addr, pfn); 127 set_pte(pte_pointer, new_pte_val); 128 flush_tlb_page(vma, addr); 129 130The cache level flush will always be first, because this allows 131us to properly handle systems whose caches are strict and require 132a virtual-->physical translation to exist for a virtual address 133when that virtual address is flushed from the cache. The HyperSparc 134cpu is one such cpu with this attribute. 135 136The cache flushing routines below need only deal with cache flushing 137to the extent that it is necessary for a particular cpu. Mostly, 138these routines must be implemented for cpus which have virtually 139indexed caches which must be flushed when virtual-->physical 140translations are changed or removed. So, for example, the physically 141indexed physically tagged caches of IA32 processors have no need to 142implement these interfaces since the caches are fully synchronized 143and have no dependency on translation information. 144 145Here are the routines, one by one: 146 1471) ``void flush_cache_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)`` 148 149 This interface flushes an entire user address space from 150 the caches. That is, after running, there will be no cache 151 lines associated with 'mm'. 152 153 This interface is used to handle whole address space 154 page table operations such as what happens during exit and exec. 155 1562) ``void flush_cache_dup_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)`` 157 158 This interface flushes an entire user address space from 159 the caches. That is, after running, there will be no cache 160 lines associated with 'mm'. 161 162 This interface is used to handle whole address space 163 page table operations such as what happens during fork. 164 165 This option is separate from flush_cache_mm to allow some 166 optimizations for VIPT caches. 167 1683) ``void flush_cache_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma, 169 unsigned long start, unsigned long end)`` 170 171 Here we are flushing a specific range of (user) virtual 172 addresses from the cache. After running, there will be no 173 entries in the cache for 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual addresses in 174 the range 'start' to 'end-1'. 175 176 The "vma" is the backing store being used for the region. 177 Primarily, this is used for munmap() type operations. 178 179 The interface is provided in hopes that the port can find 180 a suitably efficient method for removing multiple page 181 sized regions from the cache, instead of having the kernel 182 call flush_cache_page (see below) for each entry which may be 183 modified. 184 1854) ``void flush_cache_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr, unsigned long pfn)`` 186 187 This time we need to remove a PAGE_SIZE sized range 188 from the cache. The 'vma' is the backing structure used by 189 Linux to keep track of mmap'd regions for a process, the 190 address space is available via vma->vm_mm. Also, one may 191 test (vma->vm_flags & VM_EXEC) to see if this region is 192 executable (and thus could be in the 'instruction cache' in 193 "Harvard" type cache layouts). 194 195 The 'pfn' indicates the physical page frame (shift this value 196 left by PAGE_SHIFT to get the physical address) that 'addr' 197 translates to. It is this mapping which should be removed from 198 the cache. 199 200 After running, there will be no entries in the cache for 201 'vma->vm_mm' for virtual address 'addr' which translates 202 to 'pfn'. 203 204 This is used primarily during fault processing. 205 2065) ``void flush_cache_kmaps(void)`` 207 208 This routine need only be implemented if the platform utilizes 209 highmem. It will be called right before all of the kmaps 210 are invalidated. 211 212 After running, there will be no entries in the cache for 213 the kernel virtual address range PKMAP_ADDR(0) to 214 PKMAP_ADDR(LAST_PKMAP). 215 216 This routing should be implemented in asm/highmem.h 217 2186) ``void flush_cache_vmap(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)`` 219 ``void flush_cache_vunmap(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)`` 220 221 Here in these two interfaces we are flushing a specific range 222 of (kernel) virtual addresses from the cache. After running, 223 there will be no entries in the cache for the kernel address 224 space for virtual addresses in the range 'start' to 'end-1'. 225 226 The first of these two routines is invoked after map_vm_area() 227 has installed the page table entries. The second is invoked 228 before unmap_kernel_range() deletes the page table entries. 229 230There exists another whole class of cpu cache issues which currently 231require a whole different set of interfaces to handle properly. 232The biggest problem is that of virtual aliasing in the data cache 233of a processor. 234 235Is your port susceptible to virtual aliasing in its D-cache? 236Well, if your D-cache is virtually indexed, is larger in size than 237PAGE_SIZE, and does not prevent multiple cache lines for the same 238physical address from existing at once, you have this problem. 239 240If your D-cache has this problem, first define asm/shmparam.h SHMLBA 241properly, it should essentially be the size of your virtually 242addressed D-cache (or if the size is variable, the largest possible 243size). This setting will force the SYSv IPC layer to only allow user 244processes to mmap shared memory at address which are a multiple of 245this value. 246 247.. note:: 248 249 This does not fix shared mmaps, check out the sparc64 port for 250 one way to solve this (in particular SPARC_FLAG_MMAPSHARED). 251 252Next, you have to solve the D-cache aliasing issue for all 253other cases. Please keep in mind that fact that, for a given page 254mapped into some user address space, there is always at least one more 255mapping, that of the kernel in its linear mapping starting at 256PAGE_OFFSET. So immediately, once the first user maps a given 257physical page into its address space, by implication the D-cache 258aliasing problem has the potential to exist since the kernel already 259maps this page at its virtual address. 260 261 ``void copy_user_page(void *to, void *from, unsigned long addr, struct page *page)`` 262 ``void clear_user_page(void *to, unsigned long addr, struct page *page)`` 263 264 These two routines store data in user anonymous or COW 265 pages. It allows a port to efficiently avoid D-cache alias 266 issues between userspace and the kernel. 267 268 For example, a port may temporarily map 'from' and 'to' to 269 kernel virtual addresses during the copy. The virtual address 270 for these two pages is chosen in such a way that the kernel 271 load/store instructions happen to virtual addresses which are 272 of the same "color" as the user mapping of the page. Sparc64 273 for example, uses this technique. 274 275 The 'addr' parameter tells the virtual address where the 276 user will ultimately have this page mapped, and the 'page' 277 parameter gives a pointer to the struct page of the target. 278 279 If D-cache aliasing is not an issue, these two routines may 280 simply call memcpy/memset directly and do nothing more. 281 282 ``void flush_dcache_page(struct page *page)`` 283 284 Any time the kernel writes to a page cache page, _OR_ 285 the kernel is about to read from a page cache page and 286 user space shared/writable mappings of this page potentially 287 exist, this routine is called. 288 289 .. note:: 290 291 This routine need only be called for page cache pages 292 which can potentially ever be mapped into the address 293 space of a user process. So for example, VFS layer code 294 handling vfs symlinks in the page cache need not call 295 this interface at all. 296 297 The phrase "kernel writes to a page cache page" means, 298 specifically, that the kernel executes store instructions 299 that dirty data in that page at the page->virtual mapping 300 of that page. It is important to flush here to handle 301 D-cache aliasing, to make sure these kernel stores are 302 visible to user space mappings of that page. 303 304 The corollary case is just as important, if there are users 305 which have shared+writable mappings of this file, we must make 306 sure that kernel reads of these pages will see the most recent 307 stores done by the user. 308 309 If D-cache aliasing is not an issue, this routine may 310 simply be defined as a nop on that architecture. 311 312 There is a bit set aside in page->flags (PG_arch_1) as 313 "architecture private". The kernel guarantees that, 314 for pagecache pages, it will clear this bit when such 315 a page first enters the pagecache. 316 317 This allows these interfaces to be implemented much more 318 efficiently. It allows one to "defer" (perhaps indefinitely) 319 the actual flush if there are currently no user processes 320 mapping this page. See sparc64's flush_dcache_page and 321 update_mmu_cache implementations for an example of how to go 322 about doing this. 323 324 The idea is, first at flush_dcache_page() time, if 325 page->mapping->i_mmap is an empty tree, just mark the architecture 326 private page flag bit. Later, in update_mmu_cache(), a check is 327 made of this flag bit, and if set the flush is done and the flag 328 bit is cleared. 329 330 .. important:: 331 332 It is often important, if you defer the flush, 333 that the actual flush occurs on the same CPU 334 as did the cpu stores into the page to make it 335 dirty. Again, see sparc64 for examples of how 336 to deal with this. 337 338 ``void copy_to_user_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page, 339 unsigned long user_vaddr, void *dst, void *src, int len)`` 340 ``void copy_from_user_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page, 341 unsigned long user_vaddr, void *dst, void *src, int len)`` 342 343 When the kernel needs to copy arbitrary data in and out 344 of arbitrary user pages (f.e. for ptrace()) it will use 345 these two routines. 346 347 Any necessary cache flushing or other coherency operations 348 that need to occur should happen here. If the processor's 349 instruction cache does not snoop cpu stores, it is very 350 likely that you will need to flush the instruction cache 351 for copy_to_user_page(). 352 353 ``void flush_anon_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page, 354 unsigned long vmaddr)`` 355 356 When the kernel needs to access the contents of an anonymous 357 page, it calls this function (currently only 358 get_user_pages()). Note: flush_dcache_page() deliberately 359 doesn't work for an anonymous page. The default 360 implementation is a nop (and should remain so for all coherent 361 architectures). For incoherent architectures, it should flush 362 the cache of the page at vmaddr. 363 364 ``void flush_kernel_dcache_page(struct page *page)`` 365 366 When the kernel needs to modify a user page is has obtained 367 with kmap, it calls this function after all modifications are 368 complete (but before kunmapping it) to bring the underlying 369 page up to date. It is assumed here that the user has no 370 incoherent cached copies (i.e. the original page was obtained 371 from a mechanism like get_user_pages()). The default 372 implementation is a nop and should remain so on all coherent 373 architectures. On incoherent architectures, this should flush 374 the kernel cache for page (using page_address(page)). 375 376 377 ``void flush_icache_range(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)`` 378 379 When the kernel stores into addresses that it will execute 380 out of (eg when loading modules), this function is called. 381 382 If the icache does not snoop stores then this routine will need 383 to flush it. 384 385 ``void flush_icache_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page)`` 386 387 All the functionality of flush_icache_page can be implemented in 388 flush_dcache_page and update_mmu_cache. In the future, the hope 389 is to remove this interface completely. 390 391The final category of APIs is for I/O to deliberately aliased address 392ranges inside the kernel. Such aliases are set up by use of the 393vmap/vmalloc API. Since kernel I/O goes via physical pages, the I/O 394subsystem assumes that the user mapping and kernel offset mapping are 395the only aliases. This isn't true for vmap aliases, so anything in 396the kernel trying to do I/O to vmap areas must manually manage 397coherency. It must do this by flushing the vmap range before doing 398I/O and invalidating it after the I/O returns. 399 400 ``void flush_kernel_vmap_range(void *vaddr, int size)`` 401 402 flushes the kernel cache for a given virtual address range in 403 the vmap area. This is to make sure that any data the kernel 404 modified in the vmap range is made visible to the physical 405 page. The design is to make this area safe to perform I/O on. 406 Note that this API does *not* also flush the offset map alias 407 of the area. 408 409 ``void invalidate_kernel_vmap_range(void *vaddr, int size) invalidates`` 410 411 the cache for a given virtual address range in the vmap area 412 which prevents the processor from making the cache stale by 413 speculatively reading data while the I/O was occurring to the 414 physical pages. This is only necessary for data reads into the 415 vmap area. 416