RE: [Xen-devel] Switching from writeable pagetable to shadowlog-dirtyat runtime

["Li, Chengyuan" <chengyuan.li@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ian, Jun,

I don't see ptwr_flush() when shadow mode enable in both ia32 and x86_64 code. 
Why plain ia32 log dirty shadow can work?
audit_adjust_pgtables() is for plain ia32 only and it doesn't work for both 
ia32 pae and x86_64, but this function only check the ref counts and doesn't 
update guest PTE entry, e.g. R/W bit.

Another question is that how does guest update its guest page-table after 
shadow mode is enabled?  As writable-pagetable can't be used after shadow mode 
is enabled.

Ian Pratt scribbled on 2005年10月14日 1:44:

>> When we switch from writeable pagetable to shadow log-dirty
>> mode at runtime, there are some PTEs with write-protected;
>> once we do ptwr_flush(), we write-protect back the page
>> table. If we simply consult the guest page tables when
>> building the shadow page tables, then we also copy the write
>> protection to the shadow pages tables. Since the shadow code
>> does not have the logic for the writeable page table, the
>> guest kernel, for exmaple, can see write-protected page
>> table, resulting a panic. We are experiencing the problem
>> with PAE log-dirty mode (that we are working on now).
> 
> We should certainly be doing a ptwr_flush() before switching page
> table modes.

> 
> My recollection is that domain_pause in shadow_enable would cause a
> sync_pagetable_state, but that code has changed a lot since I wrote
> it. 
> 
> Ian
> 
>> So I think the current state in the writeable page should be
>> flushed and adjusted (in audit, for example, make the
>> write-protected pages back to writeable) before we switch to shadow
>> mode. Given the fact that we can switch writeable pagetable to
>> shadow log-dirty at runtime for the plain 32-bit, I'm wondering
>> where we are doing that kind of thing. 
>> 
>> Jun
>> ---
>> Intel Open Source Technology Center
>> 
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> 
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Thanks,
Chengyuan

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