Re: [PATCH v1 06/14] mm, x86: support the access bit on non-leaf PMD entries

[Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 06:12:42PM -0400, Zi Yan wrote:
> On 13 Mar 2021, at 2:57, Yu Zhao wrote:
> 
> > Some architectures support the accessed bit on non-leaf PMD entries
> > (parents) in addition to leaf PTE entries (children) where pages are
> > mapped, e.g., x86_64 sets the accessed bit on a parent when using it
> > as part of linear-address translation [1]. Page table walkers who are
> > interested in the accessed bit on children can take advantage of this:
> > they do not need to search the children when the accessed bit is not
> > set on a parent, given that they have previously cleared the accessed
> > bit on this parent in addition to its children.
> >
> > [1]: Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual
> >      Volume 3 (October 2019), section 4.8
> 
> Just curious. Does this also apply to non-leaf PUD entries? Do you
> mind sharing which sentence from the manual gives the information?

The first few sentences from 4.8:

: For any paging-structure entry that is used during linear-address
: translation, bit 5 is the accessed flag. For paging-structure
: entries that map a page (as opposed to referencing another paging
: structure), bit 6 is the dirty flag. These flags are provided for
: use by memory-management software to manage the transfer of pages and
: paging structures into and out of physical memory.

: Whenever the processor uses a paging-structure entry as part of
: linear-address translation, it sets the accessed flag in that entry
: (if it is not already set).

The way they differentiate between the A and D bits makes it clear to
me that the A bit is set at each level of the tree, but the D bit is
only set on leaf entries.