`Fix-Mapped` addresses are a set of special compile-time addresses whose corresponding physical address do not have to be a linear address minus `__START_KERNEL_map`. Each fix-mapped address maps one page frame and the kernel uses them as pointers that never change their address. That is the main point of these addresses. As the comment says: `to have a constant address at compile time, but to set the physical address only in the boot process`. You can remember that in the earliest [part](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-1.html), we already set the `level2_fixmap_pgt`:
As you can see `level2_fixmap_pgt` is right after the `level2_kernel_pgt` which is kernel code+data+bss. Every fix-mapped address is represented by an integer index which is defined in the `fixed_addresses` enum from the [arch/x86/include/asm/fixmap.h](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/include/asm/fixmap.h). For example it contains entries for `VSYSCALL_PAGE` - if emulation of legacy vsyscall page is enabled, `FIX_APIC_BASE` for local [apic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller), etc. In virtual memory fix-mapped area is placed in the modules area:
Here `__end_of_permanent_fixed_addresses` is an element of the `fixed_addresses` enum and as I wrote above: Every fix-mapped address is represented by an integer index which is defined in the `fixed_addresses`. `PAGE_SHIFT` determines size of a page. For example size of the one page we can get with the `1 << PAGE_SHIFT`. In our case we need to get the size of the fix-mapped area, but not only of one page, that's why we are using `__end_of_permanent_fixed_addresses` for getting the size of the fix-mapped area. In my case it's a little more than `536` kilobytes. In your case it might be a different number, because the size depends on amount of the fix-mapped addresses which are depends on your kernel's configuration.
The second `FIXADDR_START` macro just subtracts fix-mapped area size from the last address of the fix-mapped area to get its base virtual address. `FIXADDR_TOP` is a rounded up address from the base address of the [vsyscall](https://lwn.net/Articles/446528/) space:
first of all it checks that the index given for the `fixed_addresses` enum is not greater or equal than `__end_of_fixed_addresses` with the `BUILD_BUG_ON` macro and then returns the result of the `__fix_to_virt` macro:
Here we shift left the given `fix-mapped` address index on the `PAGE_SHIFT` which determines size of a page as I wrote above and subtract it from the `FIXADDR_TOP` which is the highest address of the `fix-mapped` area. There is an inverse function for getting `fix-mapped` address from a virtual address:
`virt_to_fix` takes virtual address, checks that this address is between `FIXADDR_START` and `FIXADDR_TOP` and calls `__virt_to_fix` macro which implemented as:
A PFN is simply an index within physical memory that is counted in page-sized units. PFN for a physical address could be trivially defined as (page_phys_addr >> PAGE_SHIFT);
`__virt_to_fix` clears the first 12 bits in the given address, subtracts it from the last address the of `fix-mapped` area (`FIXADDR_TOP`) and shifts the result right on `PAGE_SHIFT` which is `12`. Let me explain how it works. As I already wrote we will clear the first 12 bits in the given address with `x & PAGE_MASK`. As we subtract this from the `FIXADDR_TOP`, we will get the last 12 bits of the `FIXADDR_TOP` which are present. We know that the first 12 bits of the virtual address represent the offset in the page frame. With the shifting it on `PAGE_SHIFT` we will get `Page frame number` which is just all bits in a virtual address besides the first 12 offset bits. `Fix-mapped` addresses are used in different [places](http://lxr.free-electrons.com/ident?i=fix_to_virt) in the linux kernel. `IDT` descriptor stored there, [Intel Trusted Execution Technology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Execution_Technology) UUID stored in the `fix-mapped` area started from `FIX_TBOOT_BASE` index, [Xen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen) bootmap and many more... We already saw a little about `fix-mapped` addresses in the fifth [part](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-5.html) about linux kernel initialization. We use `fix-mapped` area in the early `ioremap` initialization. Let's look on it and try to understand what is `ioremap`, how it is implemented in the kernel and how it is related to the `fix-mapped` addresses.
Linux kernel provides many different primitives to manage memory. For this moment we will touch `I/O memory`. Every device is controlled by reading/writing from/to its registers. For example a driver can turn off/on a device by writing to its registers or get the state of a device by reading from its registers. Besides registers, many devices have buffers where a driver can write something or read from there. As we know for this moment there are two ways to access device's registers and data buffers:
* mapping of the all registers to the memory address space;
In the first case every control register of a device has a number of input and output port. And driver of a device can read from a port and write to it with two `in` and `out` instructions which we already saw. If you want to know about currently registered port regions, you can know they by accessing of `/proc/ioports`:
`/proc/ioporst` provides information about what driver used address of a `I/O` ports region. All of these memory regions, for example `0000-0cf7`, were claimed with the `request_region` function from the [include/linux/ioport.h](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/include/linux/ioport.h). Actually `request_region` is a macro which defied as:
`request_region` allocates `I/O` port region. Very often `check_region` function is called before the `request_region` to check that the given address range is available and `release_region` to release memory region. `request_region` returns pointer to the `resource` structure. `resource` structure presents abstraction for a tree-like subset of system resources. We already saw `resource` structure in the firth part about kernel [initialization](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-5.html) process and it looks as:
and contains start and end addresses of the resource, name, etc. Every `resource` structure contains pointers to the `parent`, `sibling` and `child` resources. As it has parent and childs, it means that every subset of resources has root `resource` structure. For example, for `I/O` ports it is `ioport_resource` structure:
As I wrote about `request_regions` is used for registering of I/O port region and this macro is used in many [places](http://lxr.free-electrons.com/ident?i=request_region) in the kernel. For example let's look at [drivers/char/rtc.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/char/rtc.c). This source code file provides [Real Time Clock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_clock) interface in the linux kernel. As every kernel module, `rtc` module contains `module_init` definition:
where `rtc_init` is `rtc` initialization function. This function is defined in the same `rtc.c` source code file. In the `rtc_init` function we can see a couple calls of the `rtc_request_region` functions, which wrap `request_region` for example:
Here `RTC_IO_EXTENT` is a size of memory region and it is `0x8`, `"rtc"` is a name of region and `RTC_PORT` is:
```C
#define RTC_PORT(x) (0x70 + (x))
```
So with the `request_region(RTC_PORT(0), size, "rtc")` we register memory region, started at `0x70` and with size `0x8`. Let's look on the `/proc/ioports`:
So, we got it! Ok, it was ports. The second way is use of `I/O` memory. As I wrote above this way is mapping of control registers and memory of a device to the memory address space. `I/O` memory is a set of contiguous addresses which are provided by a device to CPU through a bus. All memory-mapped I/O addresses are not used by the kernel directly. There is a special `ioremap` function which allows us to covert the physical address on a bus to the kernel virtual address or in another words `ioremap` maps I/O physical memory region to access it from the kernel. The `ioremap` function takes two parameters:
Part of these addresses is from the call of the `e820_reserve_resources` function. We can find call of this function in the [arch/x86/kernel/setup.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/kernel/setup.c) and the function itself is defined in the [arch/x86/kernel/e820.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/kernel/e820.c). `e820_reserve_resources` goes through the [e820](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E820) map and inserts memory regions to the root `iomem` resource structure. All `e820` memory regions which will be inserted to the `iomem` resource have following types:
Now let's try to understand how `ioremap` works. We already know a little about `ioremap`, we saw it in the fifth [part](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-5.html) about linux kernel initialization. If you have read this part, you can remember the call of the `early_ioremap_init` function from the [arch/x86/mm/ioremap.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/mm/ioremap.c). Initialization of the `ioremap` is split inn two parts: there is the early part which we can use before the normal `ioremap` is available and the normal `ioremap` which is available after `vmalloc` initialization and call of the `paging_init`. We do not know anything about `vmalloc` for now, so let's consider early initialization of the `ioremap`. First of all `early_ioremap_init` checks that `fixmap` is aligned on page middle directory boundary:
more about `BUILD_BUG_ON` you can read in the first part about [Linux Kernel initialization](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-1.html). So `BUILD_BUG_ON` macro raises compilation error if the given expression is true. In the next step after this check, we can see call of the `early_ioremap_setup` function from the [mm/early_ioremap.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/mm/early_ioremap.c). This function presents generic initialization of the `ioremap`. `early_ioremap_setup` function fills the `slot_virt` array with the virtual addresses of the early fixmaps. All early fixmaps are after `__end_of_permanent_fixed_addresses` in memory. They are stats from the `FIX_BITMAP_BEGIN` (top) and ends with `FIX_BITMAP_END` (down). Actually there are `512` temporary boot-time mappings, used by early `ioremap`:
`slot_virt` contains virtual addresses of the `fix-mapped` areas, `prev_map` array contains addresses of the early ioremap areas. Note that I wrote above: `Actually there are 512 temporary boot-time mappings, used by early ioremap` and you can see that all arrays defined with the `__initdata` attribute which means that this memory will be released after kernel initialization process. After `early_ioremap_setup` finished its work, we're getting page middle directory where early ioremap begins with the `early_ioremap_pmd` function which just gets the base address of the page global directory and calculates the page middle directory for the given address:
*`init_mm` - memory descriptor of the `init` process (you can read about it in the previous [part](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-5.html));
*`pmd` - page middle directory of the beginning of the `ioremap` fixmaps;
*`bm_pte` - early `ioremap` page table entries array which defined as:
The `pmd_popularte_kernel` function defined in the [arch/x86/include/asm/pgalloc.h](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/include/asm/pgalloc.) and populates given page middle directory (`pmd`) with the given page table entries (`bm_pte`):
That's all. Early `ioremap` is ready to use. There are a couple of checks in the `early_ioremap_init` function, but they are not so important, anyway initialization of the `ioremap` is finished.
for mapping/unmapping of IO physical address to virtual address. Both functions depends on `CONFIG_MMU` configuration option. [Memory management unit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_unit) is a special block of memory management. Main purpose of this block is translation physical addresses to virtual addresses. Technically memory management unit knows about high-level page table address (`pgd`) from the `cr3` control register. If `CONFIG_MMU` options is set to `n`, `early_ioremap` just returns the given physical address and `early_iounmap` does not nothing. In other way, if `CONFIG_MMU` option is set to `y`, `early_ioremap` calls `__early_ioremap` which takes three parameters:
First of all in the `__early_ioremap`, we goes through the all early ioremap fixmap slots and check first free are in the `prev_map` array and remember it's number in the `slot` variable and set up size as we found it:
We know that size of a page is 4096 bytes or `1000000000000` in binary. `PAGE_SIZE - 1` will be `111111111111`, but with `~`, we will get `000000000000`, but as we use `~PAGE_MASK` we will get `111111111111` again. On the second line we do the same but clear the first 12 bits and getting page-aligned size of the area on the third line. We getting aligned area and now we need to get the number of pages which are occupied by the new `ioremap` area and calculate the fix-mapped index from `fixed_addresses` in the next steps:
Now we can fill `fix-mapped` area with the given physical addresses. Every iteration in the loop, we call `__early_set_fixmap` function from the [arch/x86/mm/ioremap.c](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/x86/mm/ioremap.c), increase given physical address on page size which is `4096` bytes and update `addresses` index and number of pages:
```C
while (nrpages > 0) {
__early_set_fixmap(idx, phys_addr, prot);
phys_addr += PAGE_SIZE;
--idx;
--nrpages;
}
```
The `__early_set_fixmap` function gets the page table entry (stored in the `bm_pte`, see above) for the given physical address with:
```C
pte = early_ioremap_pte(addr);
```
In the next step of the `early_ioremap_pte` we check the given page flags with the `pgprot_val` macro and calls `set_pte` or `pte_clear` depends on it:
```C
if (pgprot_val(flags))
set_pte(pte, pfn_pte(phys >> PAGE_SHIFT, flags));
else
pte_clear(&init_mm, addr, pte);
```
As you can see above, we passed `FIXMAP_PAGE_IO` as flags to the `__early_ioremap`. `FIXMPA_PAGE_IO` expands to the:
```C
(__PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC | _PAGE_NX)
```
flags, so we call `set_pte` function for setting page table entry which works in the same manner as `set_pmd` but for PTEs (read above about it). As we set all `PTEs` in the loop, we can see the call of the `__flush_tlb_one` function:
This function is defined in the [arch/x86/include/asm/tlbflush.h](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master) and calls `__flush_tlb_single` or `__flush_tlb` depends on value of the `cpu_has_invlpg`:
`__flush_tlb_one` function invalidates given address in the [TLB](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_lookaside_buffer). As you just saw we updated paging structure, but `TLB` is not informed of the changes, that's why we need to do it manually. There are two ways to do it. First is update `cr3` control register and `__flush_tlb` function does this:
The second method is to use `invlpg` instruction to invalidates `TLB` entry. Let's look on `__flush_tlb_one` implementation. As you can see first of all it checks `cpu_has_invlpg` which defined as:
or call `__flush_tlb` which just updates `cr3` register as we saw it above. After this step execution of the `__early_set_fixmap` function is finished and we can back to the `__early_ioremap` implementation. As we have set fixmap area for the given address, we need to save the base virtual address of the I/O Re-mapped area in the `prev_map` with the `slot` index:
The second function is - `early_iounmap` - unmaps an `I/O` memory region. This function takes two parameters: base address and size of a `I/O` region and generally looks very similar on `early_ioremap`. It also goes through fixmap slots and looks for slot with the given address. After this it gets the index of the fixmap slot and calls `__late_clear_fixmap` or `__early_set_fixmap` depends on `after_paging_init` value. It calls `__early_set_fixmap` with on difference then it does `early_ioremap`: it passes `zero` as physical address. And in the end it sets address of the I/O memory region to `NULL`:
That's all about `fixmaps` and `ioremap`. Of course this part does not cover full features of the `ioremap`, it was only early ioremap, but there is also normal ioremap. But we need to know more things before it.
This is the end of the second part about linux kernel memory management. If you have questions or suggestions, ping me on twitter [0xAX](https://twitter.com/0xAX), drop me an [email](anotherworldofworld@gmail.com) or just create an [issue](https://github.com/0xAX/linux-insides/issues/new).
**Please note that English is not my first language and I am really sorry for any inconvenience. If you found any mistakes please send me a PR to [linux-insides](https://github.com/0xAX/linux-insides).**
