I'm working on a x86 system with Linux 3.6.0. For some experiments, I need to know how the IRQ is mapped to the vector. I learn from many book saying that for vector 0x0 to 0x20 is for traps and exceptions, and from vector 0x20 afterward is for the external device interrupts. And this also defined in the source code Linux/arch/x86/include/asm/irq_vectors.h
However, what I'm puzzled is that when I check the do_IRQ function,
http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v3.6/arch/x86/kernel/irq.c#L181
I found the IRQ is fetched by looking up the "vector_irq" array:
unsigned int __irq_entry do_IRQ(struct pt_regs *regs)
{
struct pt_regs *old_regs = set_irq_regs(regs);
/* high bit used in ret_from_ code */
unsigned vector = ~regs->orig_ax;
unsigned irq;
...
irq = __this_cpu_read(vector_irq[vector]); // get the IRQ from the vector_irq
// print out the vector_irq
prink("CPU-ID:%d, vector: 0x%x - irq: %d", smp_processor_id(), vector, irq);
}
By instrumenting the code with printk, the vector-irq mapping I got is like below and I don't have any clue why this is the mapping. I though the mapping should be (irq + 0x20 = vector), but it seems not the case.
from: Linux/arch/x86/include/asm/irq_vector.h
* Vectors 0 ... 31 : system traps and exceptions - hardcoded events
* Vectors 32 ... 127 : device interrupts = 0x20 – 0x7F
But my output is:
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0x56 (irq=58)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0x66 (irq=59)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0x76 (irq=60)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0x86 (irq=61)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0x96 (irq=62)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0xa6 (irq=63)
CPU-ID=0.Vector=0xb6 (irq=64)
BTW, these irqs are my 10GB ethernet cards with MSIX enabled. Could anyone give me some ideas about why this is the mapping? and what's the rules for making this mapping?
Thanks.
William
The irq number (which is what you use in software) is not the same as the vector number (which is what the interrupt controller actually uses).
The x86 I/OAPIC interrupt controller assigns interrupt priorities in groups of 16, so the vector numbers are spaced out to prevent them from interfering with each other
(see the function __assign_irq_vector in arch/x86/kernel/apic/io_apic.c).
I guess my question is how the vectors are assigned for a particular
IRQ number and what's are the rules behind.
The IOAPIC supports a register called IOREDTBL for each IRQ input. Software assigns the desired vector number for the IRQ input using bit 7-0 of this register. It is this vector number that serves as an index into the processors Interrupt Descriptor Table. Quoting the IOAPIC manual (82093AA)
7:0 Interrupt Vector (INTVEC)—R/W: The vector field is an 8 bit field
containing the interrupt vector for this interrupt. Vector values
range from 10h to FEh.
Note that these registers are not directly accessible to software. To access IOAPIC registers (not to be confused with Local APIC registers) software must use the IOREGSEL and IOWIN registers to indirectly interact with the IOAPIC. These registers are also described in the IOAPIC manual.
The source information for the IOAPIC can be a little tricky to dig up. Here's a link to the example I used:
IOAPIC data sheet link
Related
I'm currently working on a little game that can run from the boot sector of a hard drive, just for something fun to do. This means my program runs in 16-bit real mode, and I have my compiler flags set up to emit pure i386 code. I'm writing the game in C++, but I do need a lot of inline assembly to talk to the BIOS via interrupt calls. Some of these calls return a 32-bit integer, but stored in two 16-bit registers. Currently I'm doing the following to get my number out of the assembly:
auto getTicks = [](){
uint16_t ticksL{ 0 }, ticksH{ 0 };
asm volatile("int $0x1a" : "=c"(ticksH), "=d"(ticksL) : "a"(0x0));
return static_cast<uint32_t>( (ticksH << 16) | ticksL );
};
This is a lambda function I use to call this interrupt function which returns a tick count. I'm aware that there are better methods to get time data, and that I haven't implemented a check for AL to see if midnight has passed, but that's another topic.
As you can see, I have to use two 16-bit values, get the register values separately, then combine them into a 32-bit number the way you see at the return statement.
Is there any way I could retrieve that data into a single 32-bit number in my code right away avoid the shift and bitwise-or? I know that those 16-bit registers I'm accessing are really just the higher and lower 16-bits of a 32-bit register in reality, but I have no idea how to access the original 32-bit register as a whole.
I know that those 16-bit registers I'm accessing are really just the higher and lower 16-bits of a 32-bit register in reality, but I have no idea how to access the original 32-bit register as a whole.
As Jester has already pointed out, these are in fact 2 separate registers, so there is no way to retrieve "the original 32-bit register."
One other point: That interrupt modifies the ax register (returning the 'past midnight' flag), however your asm doesn't inform gcc that you are changing ax. Might I suggest something like this:
asm volatile("int $0x1a" : "=c"(ticksH), "=d"(ticksL), "=a"(midnight) : "a"(0x0));
Note that midnight is also a uint16_t.
As other answers suggest you can't load DX and CX directly into a 32-bit register. You'd have to combine them as you suggest.
In this case there is an alternative. Rather than using INT 1Ah/AH=0h you can read the BIOS Data Area (BDA) in low memory for the 32-bit DWORD value and load it into a 32-bit register. This is allowed in real mode on i386 processors. Two memory addresses of interest:
40:6C dword Daily timer counter, equal to zero at midnight;
incremented by INT 8; read/set by INT 1A
40:70 byte Clock rollover flag, set when 40:6C exceeds 24hrs
These two memory addresses are in segment:offset format, but would be equivalent to physical address 0x0046C and 0x00470.
All you'd have to do is temporarily set the DS register to 0 (saving the previous value), turn off interrupts with CLI retrieve the values from lower memory using C/C++ pointers, re-enable interrupts with STI and restore DS to the previously saved value. This of course is added overhead in the boot sector compared to using INT 1Ah/AH=0h but would allow you direct access to the memory addresses the BIOS is reading/writing on your behalf.
Note: If DS is set to zero already no need to save/set/restore it. Since we don't see the code that sets up the environment before calling into the C++ code I don't know what your default segment values are. If you don't need to retrieve both the roll over and timer values and only wish to get them individually you can eliminate the CLI/STI.
You're looking for the 'A' constraint, which refers to the dx:ax register pair as a double-wide value. You can see the full set of defined constraints for x86 in the gcc documentation. Unfortunately there are no constraints for any other register pairs, so you have to get them as two values and reassemble them with shift and or, like you describe.
I wanted to know how interrupt handling works from the point any device is interrupted.I know of interrupt handling in bits and pieces and would like to have clear end to end picture of interrupt handing.Let me put across what little I know about interrupt handling.
Suppose an FPGA device is interrupted through electrical lines and get some data .Device driver for this FPGA device already had code (Interrupt handler) registered using request_irq function.
So now FPGA device have an IRQ line which it get after to call request_irq ,using this IRQ line device send data to the General Interrupt controller and GIC will do many to one translation of IRQ lines and send the signal to CPU core which then call below minimal code
IRQ_handler
SUB lr, lr, #4 ; modify LR
SRSFD #0x12! ; store SPSR and LR to IRQ mode stack
PUSH {r0-r3, r12} ; store AAPCS registers on to the IRQ mode stack
BL IRQ_handler_to_specific_device
POP {r0-r3, r12} ; restore registers
RFEFD sp! ; and return from the exception using pre-modified LR
IRQ_handler_to_specific_device is nothing is what we registered in Device driver using request_irq() call.
I still don't how CPU core comes to know about the interrupt source?(from which device interrupt is coming)
Also what is role of call like do_irq and shared interrupts works?
Need some help in understanding end to end picture on how interrupts are handled on ARM architecture?
The GIC is divided into two sections. The first is called the distributor. This is global to the system. It has several interrupt sources physically routed to it; although it maybe within an SOC package. The second section is replicated per-CPU and it called the cpu interface. The distributor has logic on how to distribute the shared peripheral interrupts or SPI. These are the type of interrupt your question is asking about. They are global hardware interrupts.
In the context of Linux, this is implemented in irq-gic.c. There is some documentation in gic.txt. Of specific interest,
reg : Specifies base physical address(s) and size of the GIC registers. The
first region is the GIC distributor register base and size. The 2nd region is
the GIC cpu interface register base and size.
The distributor must be accessed globally, so care must be taken to manage it's registers. The CPU interface has the same physical address for each CPU, but each CPU has a separate implementation. The distributor can be set up to route interrupts to specific CPUs (including multiples). See: gic_set_affinity() for example. It is also possible for any CPU to handle the interrupt. The ACK register will allocate IRQ; the first CPU to read it, gets the interrupt. If multiple IRQs pend and there are two ACK reads from different CPUs, then each will get a different interrupt. A third CPU reading would get a spurious IRQ.
As well, each CPU interface has some private interrupt sources, that are used for CPU-to-CPU interrupts as well as private timers and the like. But I believe the focus of the question is how a physical peripheral (unique to a system) gets routed to a CPU in an SMP system.
I have a question about how to replace HW interrupt in flat memory mode...
about my application...
created by combining Watcom C and DOS32/A.
written for running on DOS mode( not on OS mode )
with DOS32/A now I can access >1M memory and allocate large memory to use...(running in flat memory mode !!!)
current issue...
I want to write an ISR(interrupt service routine) for one PCI card. Thus I need to "replace" the HW interrupt.
Ex. the PCI card's interrupt line = 0xE in DOS. That means this device will issue interrupt via 8259's IRQ 14.
But I did not how to achieve my goal to replace this interrupt in flat mode ?
# resource I found...
- in watcom C's library, there is one sample using _dos_getvect, _dos_setvect, and _chain_intr to hook INT 0x1C...
I tested this code and found OK. But when I apply it to my case: INT76 ( where IRQ 14 is "INT 0x76" <- (14-8) + 0x70 ) then nothing happened...
I checked HW interrupt is generated but my own ISR did not invoked...
Do I lose something ? or are there any functions I can use to achieve my goal ?
===============================================================
[20120809]
I tried to use DPMI calls 0x204 and 0x205 and found MyISR() is still not invoked. I described what I did as below and maybe you all can give me some suggestions !
1) Use inline assembly to implement DPMI calls 0x204 and 0x205 and test OK...
Ex. Use DPMI 0x204 to show the interrupt vectors of 16 IRQs and I get(selector:offset) following results: 8:1540(INT8),8:1544(INT9),.....,8:1560(INT70),8:1564(INT71),...,8:157C(INT77)
Ex. Use DPMI 0x205 to set the interrupt vector for IRQ14(INT76) and returned CF=0, indicating successful
2) Create my own ISR MyISR() as follows:
volatile int tick=0; // global and volatile...
void MyISR(void)
{
tick = 5; // simple code to change the value of tick...
}
3) Set new interrupt vector by DPMI call 0x205:
selector = FP_SEG(MyISR); // selector = 0x838 here
offset = FP_OFF(MyISR); // offset = 0x30100963 here
sts = DPMI_SetIntVector(0x76, selector, offset, &out_ax);
Then sts = 0(CF=0) indicating successful !
One strange thing here is:my app runs in flat memory model and I think the selector should be 0 for MyISR()... But if selector = 0 for DPMI call 0x205 then I got CF=1 and AX = 0x8022, indicating "invalid selector" !
4) Let HW interrupt be generated and the evidences are:
PCI device config register 0x5 bit2(Interrupt Disabled) = 0
PCI device config register 0x6 bit3(Interrupt status) = 1
PCI device config register 0x3C/0x3D (Interrupt line) = 0xE/0x2
In DOS the interrupt mode is PIC mode(8259 mode) and Pin-based(MSIE=0)
5) Display the value of tick and found it is still "0"...
Thus I think MyISR() is not invoked correctly...
Try using DPMI Function 0204h and 0205h instead of '_dos_getvect' and '_dos_setvect', respectively.
The runtime environment of your program is DOS32A or a DPMI Server/host. So use the api they provided instead of using DOS int21h facilities. But DOS32A does intercepts int21h interrupts, so your code should work fine, as far as real mode is concerned.
Actually what you did is you install only real mode interrupt handler for IRQ14 by using '_dos_getvect' and '_dos_setvect' functions.
By using the DPMI functions instead, you install protected mode interrupt handler for IRQ14, and DOS32a will autopassup IRQ14 interrupt to this protected mode handler.
Recall: A dos extender/DPMI server can be in protected mode or real mode while an IRQ is asserted.
This is becoz your application uses some DOS or BIOS API, so extender needs to switch to real mode to execute them and the return back to protected mode to transfer control to you protected mode application.
DOS32a does this by allocating a real-mode callback (at least for hardware interrupts) which calls your protected mode handler if IRQ14 is asserted while the Extender is in real-mode.
If the extender is in protected mode, while IRQ14 is asserted, it will automatically transfer control to your IRQ14 handler.
But if you didn't install protected mode handler for your IRQ, then DOS32a, will not allocate any real-mode callback, and your real-mode irq handler may not get control.
But it should recieve control AFAIK.
Anyway give the above two functions a try. And do chain to the previous int76h interrupt handler as Sean said.
In short:
In case of DOS32a, you need not use '_dos_getvect' and '_dos_setvect' functions. Instead use the DPMI functions 0204h and 0205h for installing your protected mode IRQ handler.
An advise : In your interrupt handler the first step should be to check whether your device actually generated interrupt or it is some other device sharing this irq(IRQ14 in your case). You can do this by checking a 'interrupt pending bit' in your device, if it is set, service your device and chain to next handler. If it is not set to 1, simply chain to next handler.
EDITED:
Use the latest version of DOS32a, instead of one that comes with OW.
Update on 2012-08-14:
Yes, you can use FP_SEG and FP_OFF macros for obtaining selector and offset respectively, just like you would use these macros in real modes to get segment and offset.
You can also use MK_FP macro to create far pointers from selector and offset. eg.
MK_FP(selector, offset).
You should declare your interrupt handler with ' __interrupt ', keyword when writing handlers in C.
Here is a snippet:
#include <i86.h> /* for FP_OFF, FP_SEG, and MK_FP in OW */
/* C Prototype for your IRQ handler */
void __interrupt __far irqHandler(void);
.
.
.
irq_selector = (unsigned short)FP_SEG( &irqHandler );
irq_offset = (unsigned long)FP_OFF( &irqHandler );
__dpmi_SetVect( intNum, irq_selector, irq_offset );
.
.
.
or, try this:
extern void sendEOItoMaster(void);
# pragma aux sendEOItoMaster = \
"mov al, 0x20" \
"out 0x20, al" \
modify [eax] ;
extern void sendEOItoSlave(void);
# pragma aux sendEOItoSlave = \
"mov al, 0x20" \
"out 0xA0, al" \
modify [eax] ;
unsigned int old76_selector, new76_selector;
unsigned long old76_offset, new76_offset;
volatile int chain = 1; /* Chain to the old handler */
volatile int tick=0; // global and volatile...
void (__interrupt __far *old76Handler)(void) = NULL; // function pointer declaration
void __interrupt __far new76Handler(void) {
tick = 5; // simple code to change the value of tick...
.
.
.
if( chain ){
// disable irqs if enabled above.
_chain_intr( old76Handler ); // 'jumping' to the old handler
// ( *old76Handler )(); // 'calling' the old handler
}else{
sendEOItoMaster();
sendEOItoSlave();
}
}
__dpmi_GetVect( 0x76, &old76_selector, &old76_offset );
old76Handler = ( void (__interrupt __far *)(void) ) MK_FP (old76_selector, old76_offset)
new76_selector = (unsigned int)FP_SEG( &new76Handler );
new76_offset = (unsigned long)FP_OFF( &new76Handler );
__dpmi_SetVect( 0x76, new76_selector, new76_offset );
.
.
NOTE:
You should first double check that the IRQ# you are hooking is really assigned/mapped to the interrupt pin of your concerned PCI device. IOWs, first read 'Interrupt Line register' (NOT Interrupt Pin register) from PCI configuration space, and hook only that irq#. The valid values for this register, in your case are: 0x00 through 0x0F inclusive, with 0x00 means IRQ0 and 0x01 means IRQ1 and so on.
POST/BIOS code writes a value in 'Interrupt Line register', while booting, and you MUST NOT modify this register at any cost.(of course, unless you are dealing with interrupt routing issues which an OS writer will deal with)
You should also get and save the selector and offset of the old handler by using DPMI call 0204h, in case you are chaining to old handler. If not, don't forget to send EOI(End-of-interrupt) to BOTH master and slave PICs in case you hooked an IRQ belonging to slave PIC(ie INT 70h through 77h, including INT 0Ah), and ONLY to master PIC in case you hooked an IRQ belonging to master PIC.
In flat model, the BASE address is 0 and Limit is 0xFFFFF, with G bit(ie Granularity bit) = 1.
The base and limit(along with attribute bits(e.g G bit) of a segment) reside in the descriptor corresponding to a particular segment. The descriptor itself, sits in the descriptor table.
Descriptor tables are an array with each entry being 8bytes.
The selector is merely a pointer(or an index) to the 8-byte descriptor entry, in the Descriptor table(either GDT or LDT). So a selector CAN'T be 0.
Note that lowest 3 bits of 16-bit selector have special meaning, and only the upper 13-bits are used to index a descriptor entry from a descriptor table.
GDT = Global Descriptor Table
LDT = Local Descriptor Table
A system can have only one GDT, but many LDTs.
As entry number 0 in GDT, is reserved and can't be used. AFAIK, DOS32A, does not create any LDT for its applications, instead it simply allocate and initalize descriptor entries corresponding to the application, in GDT itself.
Selector MUST not be 0, as x86 architecture regards 0 selector as invalid, when you try to access memory with that selector; though you can successfully place 0 in any segment register, it is only when you try to access(read/write/execute) that segment, the cpu generates an exception.
In case of interrupt handlers, the base address need not be 0, even in case of flat mode.
The DPMI environment must have valid reasons for doing this so.
After all, you still need to tackle segmentation at some level in x86 architecture.
PCI device config register 0x5 bit2(Interrupt Disabled) = 0
PCI device config register 0x6 bit3(Interrupt status) = 1
I think, you mean Bus master command and status registers respectively. They actually reside in either I/O space or memory space, but NOT in PCI configuration space.
So you can read/write them directly via IN/OUT or MOV, instructions.
For reading/writing, PCI configuration registers you must use configuration red/write methods or PCI BIOS routines.
NOTE:
Many PCI disk controllers, have a bit called 'Interrupt enable/disable' bit. The register
that contains this bit is usually in the PCI configuration space, and can be found from the datasheet.
Actually, this setting is for "forwarding" the interrupt generated by the device attached to the PCI controller, to the PCI bus.
If, interrupts are disabled via this bit, then even if your device(attached to PCI controller) is generating the interrupt, the interrupt will NOT be forwarded to the PCI bus(and hence cpu will never know if interrupt occurred), but the interrupt bit(This bit is different from 'Interrupt enable/disable' bit) in PCI controller is still set to notify that the device(attached to PCI controller, eg a hard disk) generated an interrupt, so that the program can read this bit and take appropriate actions. It is similar to polling, from programming perspective.
This usually apply only for non-bus master transfers.
But, it seems that you are using bus master transfers(ie DMA), so it should not apply in your case.
But anyway, I would suggest you do read the datasheet of the PCI controller carefully, especially looking for bits/registers related to interrupt handling
EDITED:
Well, as far as application level programming is concerned, you need not encounter/use _far pointers, as your program will not access anything outside to your code.
But this is not completely true, when you go to system-level programming, you need to access memory mapped device registers, external ROM, or implementing interrupt handlers, etc.
The story changes here. The creation of a segment ie allocating descriptor and getting its associated selector, ensures that even if there is a bug in code, it will not annoyingly change anything external to that particular segment from which current code is executing. If it tries to do so, cpu will generate a fault. So when accessing external devices(especially memory mapped device's registers), or accessing some rom data, eg BIOS etc., it is a good idea to have allocate a descriptor and set the base and segment limits according to the area you need to execute/read/write and proceed. But you are not bound to do so.
Some external code residing for eg in rom, assume that they will be invoked with a far call.
As I said earlier, in x86 architecture, at some level(the farther below you go) you need to deal with segmentation as there is no way to disable it completely.
But in flat model, segmentation is present as an aid to programmer, as I said above, when accessing external(wrt to your program) things. But you need not use if you don't desire to do so.
When an interrupt handler is invoked, it doesn't know the base and limits of program that was interrupted. It doesn't know the segment attributes, limits etc. of the interrupted program, we say except CS and EIP all registers are in undefined state wrt interrupt handler. So it is needed to be declared as far function to indicate that it resides somewhere external to currently executing program.
it's been a while since I fiddled with interrupts, but the table is a pointer to set where the processor should go to to process an interrupt. I can give you the process, but not code, as I only ever used 8086 code.
Pseudo code:
Initialize:
Get current vector - store value
Set vector to point to the entry point of your routine
next:
Process Interrupt:
Your code decides what to do with data
If it's your data:
process it, and return
If not:
jump to the stored vector that we got during initialize,
and let the chain of interrupts continue as they normally would
finally:
Program End:
check to see if interrupt still points to your code
if yes, set vector back to the saved value
if no, set beginning of your code to long jump to vector address you saved,
or set a flag that lets your program not process anything
I need to send an nmi on the system I am working on. I want to test few things which I have implemented. Is there any windows driver routine which allows us to do that? I think I can write to a port using __outword. Is there any other way to do it?
I have one more question. Are there any specific scenarios which causes an NMI? (However, I dont want system to BSOD or triple fault.)
Thanks
From Intel's Software Development Manual: System Programming Guide:
The nonmaskable interrupt (NMI) can be generated in either of two ways:
External hardware asserts the NMI pin.
The processor receives a message on the system bus (Pentium 4, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2, Intel Atom, and Intel Xeon processors) or the APIC serial bus (P6 family and Pentium processors) with a delivery mode NMI.
and
It is possible to issue a maskable hardware interrupt (through the INTR pin) to vector 2 to invoke the NMI interrupt handler; however, this interrupt will not truly be an NMI interrupt. A true NMI interrupt that activates the processors NMI-handling hardware can only be delivered through one of the mechanisms listed above.
So, if all you want to do is trigger the NMI handler, you can simply use int $2 (int 02h in Intel syntax). But, if you need to ensure that it is not masked, you will either need external hardware to trigger it, or to use the APIC.
If you choose to use the APIC to send an NMI, the easiest way to do it is to send an inter-processor interrupt. To do this, you will need access to the local APIC's registers, which are mapped into physical memory, by default at the address 0xFEE00000, although that can be changed. You will need to find the physical page containing the APIC's registers and map it into virtual memory so that you can access them.
In order to send an IPI, you need to write into the interrupt configuration register. The ICR's low 32 bits are located at 0x300 within the APIC's page, and the upper 32 bits are at 0x310. To send the NMI, you need to:
Get the APIC ID of the processor you want to send the NMI to. If you want to send it to the processor you are running on, this is simple since you can read it from the APIC at 0x20 in bits 24-31.
Write the APIC ID into the destination field, bits 24-31 of the high ICR register.
Write the value 0x4400 into the low ICR register. Bits 8-10 of this value indicate that you are sending an NMI, and bit 14 indicates that you are using the assert trigger mode.
When writing to an APIC register, you must write a full 32 bit value. Also, bits 13, 16-17, and 20-55 in the ICR are reserved, so you should not change their values. You also must write to the high bits of the ICR before the low bits, since the IPI is triggered by the write to the low bits.
Here is an example of sending an NMI to the current processor in C.
#define APIC_ID_OFFSET 0x20
#define ICR_LOW_OFFSET 0x300
#define ICR_HIGH_OFFSET 0x310
// Convenience macro used to access APIC registers
#define APIC_REG(offset) (*(unsigned int*)(apicAddress + offset))
void *apicAddress; // This should contain the virtual address that the APIC registers are mapped to
// Get the current APIC ID. Leave it in the high 8 bits since that is where it needs to be written anyway
unsigned int apicID = APIC_REG(APIC_ID_OFFSET) & 0xFF000000;
unsigned int high = APIC_REG(ICR_HIGH_OFFSET) & 0x00FFFFFF;
high |= apicID;
unsigned int low = APIC_REG(ICR_LOW_OFFSET) & 0xFFF32000;
low |= 0x4400;
APIC_REG(ICR_HIGH_OFFSET) = high;
APIC_REG(ICR_LOW_OFFSET) = low;
I have existing code that takes a list of struct page * and builds a descriptor table to share memory with a device. The upper layer of that code currently expects a buffer allocated with vmalloc or from user space, and uses vmalloc_to_page to obtain the corresponding struct page *.
Now the upper layer needs to cope with all kinds of memory, not just memory obtained through vmalloc. This could be a buffer obtained with kmalloc, a pointer inside the stack of a kernel thread, or other cases that I'm not aware of. The only guarantee I have is that the caller of this upper layer must ensure that the memory buffer in question is mapped in kernel space at that point (i.e. it is valid to access buffer[i] for all 0<=i<size at this point). How do I obtain a struct page* corresponding to an arbitrary pointer?
Putting it in pseudo-code, I have this:
lower_layer(struct page*);
upper_layer(void *buffer, size_t size) {
for (addr = buffer & PAGE_MASK; addr <= buffer + size; addr += PAGE_SIZE) {
struct page *pg = vmalloc_to_page(addr);
lower_layer(pg);
}
}
and I now need to change upper_layer to cope with any valid buffer (without changing lower_layer).
I've found virt_to_page, which Linux Device Drivers indicates operates on “a logical address, [not] memory from vmalloc or high memory”. Furthermore, is_vmalloc_addr tests whether an address comes from vmalloc, and virt_addr_valid tests if an address is a valid virtual address (fodder for virt_to_page; this includes kmalloc(GFP_KERNEL) and kernel stacks). What about other cases: global buffers, high memory (it'll come one day, though I can ignore it for now), possibly other kinds that I'm not aware of? So I could reformulate my question as:
What are all the kinds of memory zones in the kernel?
How do I tell them apart?
How do I obtain page mapping information for each of them?
If it matters, the code is running on ARM (with an MMU), and the kernel version is at least 2.6.26.
I guess what you want is a page table walk, something like (warning, not actual code, locking missing etc):
struct mm_struct *mm = current->mm;
pgd = pgd_offset(mm, address);
pmd = pmd_offset(pgd, address);
pte = *pte_offset_map(pmd, address);
page = pte_page(pte);
But you you should be very very careful with this. the kmalloc address you got might very well be not page aligned for example. This sounds like a very dangerous API to me.
Mapping Addresses to a struct page
There is a requirement for Linux to have a fast method of mapping virtual addresses to physical addresses and for mapping struct pages to their physical address. Linux achieves this by knowing where, in both virtual and physical memory, the global mem_map array is because the global array has pointers to all struct pages representing physical memory in the system. All architectures achieve this with very similar mechanisms, but, for illustration purposes, we will only examine the x86 carefully.
Mapping Physical to Virtual Kernel Addresses
any virtual address can be translated to the physical address by simply subtracting PAGE_OFFSET, which is essentially what the function virt_to_phys() with the macro __pa() does:
/* from <asm-i386/page.h> */
132 #define __pa(x) ((unsigned long)(x)-PAGE_OFFSET)
/* from <asm-i386/io.h> */
76 static inline unsigned long virt_to_phys(volatile void * address)
77 {
78 return __pa(address);
79 }
Obviously, the reverse operation involves simply adding PAGE_OFFSET, which is carried out by the function phys_to_virt() with the macro __va(). Next we see how this helps the mapping of struct pages to physical addresses.
There is one exception where virt_to_phys() cannot be used to convert virtual addresses to physical ones. Specifically, on the PPC and ARM architectures, virt_to_phys() cannot be used to convert addresses that have been returned by the function consistent_alloc(). consistent_alloc() is used on PPC and ARM architectures to return memory from non-cached for use with DMA.
What are all the kinds of memory zones in the kernel? <---see here
For user-space allocated memory, you want to use get_user_pages, which will give you the list of pages associated with the malloc'd memory, and also increment their reference counter (you'll need to call page_cache_release on each page once done with them.)
For vmalloc'd pages, vmalloc_to_page is your friend, and I don't think you need to do anything.
For 64 bit architectures, the answer of gby should be adapted to:
pgd_t * pgd;
pmd_t * pmd;
pte_t * pte;
struct page *page = NULL;
pud_t * pud;
void * kernel_address;
pgd = pgd_offset(mm, address);
pud = pud_offset(pgd, address);
pmd = pmd_offset(pud, address);
pte = pte_offset_map(pmd, address);
page = pte_page(*pte);
// mapping in kernel memory:
kernel_address = kmap(page);
// work with kernel_address....
kunmap(page);
You could try virt_to_page. I am not sure it is what you want, but at least it is somewhere to start looking.