Run a process at the same physical memory location - linux-kernel

Question

For a research project, I have a long-running process that uses various buffers and stack variables. I'd like to be able to launch this process multiple times such that the physical addresses backing its heap, stack, code, and static variables are equal each time. I know the exact size of all of these variables, and the size of the heap and stack stay constant during execution. To help with this, I use some helper code to translate arbitrary virtual addresses in my program to their corresponding physical addresses (sourced from here):
struct pagemap
{
union status
{
struct present
{
unsigned long long pfn : 54;
unsigned char soft_dirty : 1;
unsigned char exclusive : 1;
unsigned char zeroes : 4;
unsigned char type : 1;
unsigned char swapped : 1;
unsigned char present : 1;
} present;
struct swapped
{
unsigned char swaptype : 4;
unsigned long long offset : 50;
unsigned char soft_dirty : 1;
unsigned char exclusive : 1;
unsigned char zeroes : 4;
unsigned char type : 1;
unsigned char swapped : 1;
unsigned char present : 1;
} swapped;
} status;
} __attribute__ ((packed));
unsigned long get_pfn_for_addr(void *addr)
{
unsigned long offset;
struct pagemap pagemap;
FILE *pagemap_file = fopen("/proc/self/pagemap", "rb");
offset = (unsigned long) addr / getpagesize() * 8;
if(fseek(pagemap_file, offset, SEEK_SET) != 0)
{
fprintf(stderr, "failed to seek pagemap to offset\n");
exit(1);
}
fread(&pagemap, 1, sizeof(struct pagemap), pagemap_file);
fclose(pagemap_file);
return pagemap.status.present.pfn;
}
unsigned long virt_to_phys(void *addr)
{
unsigned long pfn, page_offset, phys_addr;
pfn = get_pfn_for_addr(addr);
page_offset = (unsigned long) addr % getpagesize();
phys_addr = (pfn << PAGE_SHIFT) + page_offset;
return phys_addr;
}
So far, my methodology has only required that a specific buffer in my program is located at the same physical address for each run. For this, I was just able to exit and relaunch the process whenever the physical address for that buffer was wrong, and I would end up with the correct location relatively quickly each time. However, I'd like to extend my experiment to ensure that my process is loaded identically in physical memory between runs, and this try-and-restart method does not seem to work well for this. Ideally, I would like to be able to set apart some small number of physical page frames that can't be allocated to another process, or to the kernel itself. Then, I would pass a flag down to do_fork that notifies the kernel that this is my special process and to allocate specific page frames to it.
My questions are:
Is there any sort of isolation mechanism already built into the kernel that would let me set aside an exclusive physical memory space that I could launch my process in?
If not, what would be a starting point for modifying the kernel to support behavior like this?
Is there any other solution (not involving either of the two above) that I could use for my desired behavior?

Answer 1

This is something that the kernel, using virtual memory, is tasked to abstract from you, so I'm not sure it is even possible to do (without insane amounts of work).
May I ask what experiment requires this? Perhaps if you describe what you want to achieve, it is easier to offer advice.