Re: [PATCH] swapin flush cache bug

NIIBE Yutaka (gniibe@m17n.org)
Thu, 28 Jun 2001 09:41:13 +0900 (JST)


Hello Stephen,

Stephen C. Tweedie wrote:
> First, don't we want to do a flush_page_to_ram() *before* starting the
> swap IO?

Well, let me explain the issue. It is the thing we need to do
flushing *after* I/O.

--------------------------
Problem with virtually indexed physically tagged write-back cache.

(1) Page got swapped out

Swap out
[ Page ] ----> [ Disk ]

(2) Page got swapped in asynchronously, possibly by read-ahead

Swap in
[ Page ] <---- [ Disk ]
K

The I/O from disk goes through kernel virtual address K.
We have cache entries indexed by K.

(3) Page fault occurs at user space U

U ----> [ Page ] -----> [ Disk ]
K

The control goes to do_swap_page, found the page at
lookup_swap_cache.

If K and U indexes differently, we have cache alias issues, we need
to flush the entries indexed by K and let them go to memory. Or else,
user space will see bogus data in Page.

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