Re: [Xen-devel] Setting up page directories and tables

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> This OS is designed for 32-bit x86 (no PAE), so I intend to use a two-level
> paging system. Each process has a page directory - one page with entries
> which point to page tables, whose entries describe actual pages. As far as
> I can tell, this is what's done in the Mini-OS source, with page
> directories referred to as L1 page tables, and what I'm calling page tables
> referred to as L2 page tables.

I think you've got this backwards: in Xen code, L1 page tables are the leaf 
nodes, L2 are their parents, L3 are their parents, etc etc.

Cheers,
Mark

> So when creating a process, I do the following:
>     allocate a page P for the process's page directory
>     fill P with zeros
>     update the existing page table mapping for P (previously set up by what
> is essentially the build_pagetable() code from Mini-OS) to give it L1_PROT
> & ~_PAGE_RW
>         (using HYPERVISOR_mmu_update(...))
>     pin the page (using HYPERVISOR_mmuext_op({MMUEXT_PIN_L1_TABLE,
> ...}...))
>
> All of these steps succeed (the hypercall returns 0, and the argument
> indicating how many updates succeeded is 1 in both cases). But later, when
> switching into the context of this process, I try to update the user base
> pointer with
>
>  HYPERVISOR_mmuext_op({MMUEXT_NEW_USER_BASEPTR, mfn of P}...).
>
> This call fails (returns -1, and indicates that 0 operations succeeded).
> Why might that be? As I've established, the page is zero'd out (so it's not
> invalid), and it seems to be mapped properly (not writable, pinned L1 page
> table). So why would this operation fail?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Dave Pacheco



-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

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