* Re: SMP VM race in 2.[0-4]
[not found] <Pine.LNX.3.96.1001004154920.27909C-100000@artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>
@ 2000-10-04 14:13 ` Eric Lowe
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Eric Lowe @ 2000-10-04 14:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Mikulas Patocka; +Cc: linux-kernel, linux-mm
Hello,
> I found a possible problem on SMP. In vmscan.c / try_to_swap_out you do
> not use atomic operations for manipulating with ptes. You read the pte,
> modify it and write it nonatomically. When the second CPU is running
> process that turns on 'D' bit of pte while the first CPU is in
> try_to_swap_out, 'D' bit is lost. Because anonymous pages have always 'D'
> bit set, the bug can only affect pages mapped with MAP_SHAREAD,
> PROT_WRITE. Sometimes updates are not written back to file.
>
You're correct. A discussion about this occurred on Linux-MM
1-2 weeks ago, and a patch followed. (Unfortunately, it's not
very efficient, but I'm not sure if anyone has found a really
good solution yet to this problem on any other x86 OS)
Check out:
http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-mm/2000-09/
Thread: [PATCH] workaround for lost dirty bits on x86 SMP -and-
Thread: [PATCH] 2.2.18pre5 version of pte dirty bit psmp race atch
--
Eric Lowe
FibreChannel Software Engineer, Systran Corporation
elowe@systran.com
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