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Armv8A - use of Xen and hypervisor EL2 translation tables to extend bridge address span


  • To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • From: Kris Chaplin <kris.chaplin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:15:01 +0000
  • Delivery-date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:16:05 +0000
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  • List-id: Xen user discussion <xen-users.lists.xenproject.org>

Hello,

I have a very specific challenge that I'm looking to solve, and I think that a Hypervisor such as Xen, potentially with some modifications may help me get there.

In short, I have a ARM 64-bit v8A device (Cortex-A53) that has a bridge to custom logic with a limited address span, and I'm looking to address more range than this brige has capacity for in a way that is transparent to the operating system.  In the hardware, I have a windowed controller that I can control at run-time to expose a subset of the address space at any one time, but never the full range.

My thoughts are that in the OS, I could create a device tree to instantiate a bridge to the address space that has range for the full capacity I'm looking for at an unused portion of the IPA address map, and the use the hypervisor to trap page faults to VTTBR0_EL2-mapped pages, get the hypervisor to steer the windowed controller (if it is not already pointing to the correct window being addressed) and then clear the page fault, and allow the OS to continue.  In this way, the OS would be none-the-wiser to the existance of the windowed controller, and software/drivers mapping to this bridge would use the interface transparently (albeit with a performance hit).

Perhaps I've not explained that too well.  It's quite a specific challenge, that I would assume would require some customization of Xen.  Has anything similar to this been done before, or can anyone point me in the direction of if this is feasible, and where to research next?

Appreciate the help.

regards

Kris




 


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