Zachary Amsden wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 18:55 +0000, Hugh Dickins wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 13 Mar 2008, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
>>
>>> My other concern is just correctness over time on the Linux side. We
>>> already
>>> have enough trouble keeping things like the pte and page structure state in
>>> sync, with resulting rare data-loss bugs. Adding another layer which only
>>> applies in specific environments raises the possibility for new bugs to be
>>> un-noticed for a long time. How can we structure the VM changes to make
>>> sure
>>> that its robust in the face of maintenance?
>>>
>> Yes, that's the main concern, as whenever lots of subtlety is added.
>> I wonder if there's any chance of a CONFIG_DEBUG mode, which could be
>> run on anybody's x86 machine, without involving any virtualization, but
>> in which the PAGE_STATEs become essential to the correct working of the mm.
>>
>
> How about a fake hypervisor, which is really just a random page evictor,
> following the rules of CMM?
>
Probably simpler to just have variants of the page_set_* functions which
simulate the worst-possible host action immediately (ie, stealing pages,
logically swapping them, etc). That wouldn't give you full coverage,
but it would go some way. An async variant which schedules a change in
a few milliseconds would help too.
I guess that's equivalent to having a special-purpose hypervisor built
into the kernel (hm, sounds familiar...).
J
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