base-hw & the root task

[Martin Stein]

On 05.11.2013 15:59, Neal H. Walfield wrote:
> At Tue, 05 Nov 2013 15:15:49 +0100,
> Martin Stein wrote:
>> The single "kernel"-thread executes solely in privileged CPU mode.
>> Initially it disables the MMU and runs in physical address space.
>> Before leaving privileged CPU mode the first time, it enables the
>> MMU, using the address space of the root-task (core). Thus
>> both, threads of the non-privileged root-task and the single "kernel"
>> thread use the same virtual address space. For the purpose of
>> simplification "kernel" thread and root-task threads also share data
>> structures (e.g. raw page-tables or the interrupt-lookup table). This
>> must be done carefully because "kernel" thread can always interrupt
>> root-task threads and access shared objects without synchronization.
> If I understand correctly, you are basically implementing a fail fast
> mechanism for the root task.
>
> Thus, the root task can, say, walk the page tables, but to modify the
> page tables or to switch protection domains, it traps to the kernel?
> Similarly, I'm guessing the kernel doesn't walk any of the root task's
> data structure (or, it does so very conservatively).
>
By now the "kernel" thread creates the root-task page-table
at start-up in a way, that it contains 1:1 mappings for all physical
regions that are ever needed by root-task or kernel. Thus root-task
threads and the kernel thread never throw page-faults and access
resources in virtual space via their physical addresses. This way we
keep things simple while benefit from several performance features
the ARM MMU provides. As a result of this, root-task never touches its
own page table. If root-task threads want to create further page
tables they use a syscall. During this syscall, kernel initializes the
page table with generic stuff. After that, application-specific control
of the new page table is in the hands of the root-task threads.

Martin