Re: [PATCH 3.5] arm: make initialization of zero page independent of the memory map (was Re: [PATCH v2 22/28] arch, mm: consolidate initialization of nodes, zones and memory map)

From
Russell King (Oracle) <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
Date
2026-01-04 20:58:13
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Reply to
Mike Rapoport, 2026-01-04
On Sun, Jan 04, 2026 at 02:01:40PM +0200, Mike Rapoport wrote:
From 35d016bbf5da7c08cc5c5547c85558fc50cb63aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Klara Modin <redacted>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2026 20:40:09 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] arm: make initialization of zero page independent of the
 memory map

Unlike most architectures, arm keeps a struct page pointer to the
empty_zero_page and to initialize it requires conversion of a virtual
address to page which makes it necessary to have memory map initialized
before creating the empty_zero_page.

Make empty_zero_page a stataic array in BSS to decouple it's
initialization from the initialization of the memory map.
I see you haven't considered _why_ ARM does this.

You are getting rid of the flush_dcache_page() call, which ensures
that the zeroed contents of the page are pushed out of the cache
into memory. This is necessary.

BSS is very similar. It's memset() during the kernel boot _after_
the caches are enabled. Without an explicit flush, nothing
guarantees that those writes will be visible to userspace.

To me, this seems like a bad idea, which will cause userspace to
break.

We need to call flush_dcache_page(), and _that_ requires a struct
page.

-- 
RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
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Thread (44 messages) 44 messages, 10 authors, last reply 2026-02-20
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