This is the mail archive of the systemtap@sourceware.org mailing list for the systemtap project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: [PATCH] Linux Kernel Markers 0.5 for Linux 2.6.17 (with probe management)


* Ingo Molnar (mingo@elte.hu) wrote:
> 
> * Mathieu Desnoyers <compudj@krystal.dyndns.org> wrote:
> 
> > >   "As an example, LTTng traces the page fault handler, when kprobes 
> > >   just can't instrument it."
> > > 
> > > but tracing a raw pagefault at the arch level is a bad idea anyway, 
> > > we want to trace __handle_mm_fault(). That way you can avoid having 
> > > to modify every architecture's pagefault handler ...
> > 
> > Then you lose the ability to trace in-kernel minor page faults.
> 
> that's wrong, minor pagefaults go through __handle_mm_fault() just as 
> much.
> 

Hi Ingo,

On a 2.6.17 kernel tree :

In do_page_fault()
  
        if (unlikely(address >= TASK_SIZE)) {
                if (!(error_code & 0x0000000d) && vmalloc_fault(address) >= 0)
                        return;

In vmalloc_fault()

static inline int vmalloc_fault(unsigned long address)
{
        unsigned long pgd_paddr;
        pmd_t *pmd_k;
        pte_t *pte_k;
        /*
         * Synchronize this task's top level page-table
         * with the 'reference' page table.
         *
         * Do _not_ use "current" here. We might be inside
         * an interrupt in the middle of a task switch..
         */
        pgd_paddr = read_cr3();
        pmd_k = vmalloc_sync_one(__va(pgd_paddr), address);
        if (!pmd_k)
                return -1;
        pte_k = pte_offset_kernel(pmd_k, address);
        if (!pte_present(*pte_k))
                return -1;
        return 0;
}


It seems like a shortcut path that will never call __handle_mm_fault. This path
is precisely used to handle vmalloc faults.

Mathieu

OpenPGP public key:              http://krystal.dyndns.org:8080/key/compudj.gpg
Key fingerprint:     8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F  BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68 


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]