Linux kernel memory management Part 2. ================================================================================ Fix-Mapped Addresses and ioremap -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `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`: ```assembly NEXT_PAGE(level2_fixmap_pgt) .fill 506,8,0 .quad level1_fixmap_pgt - __START_KERNEL_map + _PAGE_TABLE .fill 5,8,0 NEXT_PAGE(level1_fixmap_pgt) .fill 512,8,0 ``` 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: ``` +-----------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | | | | | |kernel text| kernel | | vsyscalls | | mapping | text | Modules | fix-mapped | |from phys 0| data | | addresses | | | | | | +-----------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ __START_KERNEL_map __START_KERNEL MODULES_VADDR 0xffffffffffffffff ``` Base virtual address and size of the `fix-mapped` area are presented by the two following macro: ```C #define FIXADDR_SIZE (__end_of_permanent_fixed_addresses << PAGE_SHIFT) #define FIXADDR_START (FIXADDR_TOP - FIXADDR_SIZE) ``` 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` killobytes. 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 substracts 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: ```C #define FIXADDR_TOP (round_up(VSYSCALL_ADDR + PAGE_SIZE, 1<= __end_of_fixed_addresses); return __fix_to_virt(idx); } ``` 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: ```C #define __fix_to_virt(x) (FIXADDR_TOP - ((x) << PAGE_SHIFT)) ``` 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: ```C static inline unsigned long virt_to_fix(const unsigned long vaddr) { BUG_ON(vaddr >= FIXADDR_TOP || vaddr < FIXADDR_START); return __virt_to_fix(vaddr); } ``` `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: ```C #define __virt_to_fix(x) ((FIXADDR_TOP - ((x)&PAGE_MASK)) >> PAGE_SHIFT) ``` 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 shiting 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 releated to the `fix-mapped` addresses. ioremap -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: * through the I/O ports; * 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`: ``` $ cat /proc/ioports 0000-0cf7 : PCI Bus 0000:00 0000-001f : dma1 0020-0021 : pic1 0040-0043 : timer0 0050-0053 : timer1 0060-0060 : keyboard 0064-0064 : keyboard 0070-0077 : rtc0 0080-008f : dma page reg 00a0-00a1 : pic2 00c0-00df : dma2 00f0-00ff : fpu 00f0-00f0 : PNP0C04:00 03c0-03df : vesafb 03f8-03ff : serial 04d0-04d1 : pnp 00:06 0800-087f : pnp 00:01 0a00-0a0f : pnp 00:04 0a20-0a2f : pnp 00:04 0a30-0a3f : pnp 00:04 0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1 0d00-ffff : PCI Bus 0000:00 ... ... ... ``` `/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: ```C #define request_region(start,n,name) __request_region(&ioport_resource, (start), (n), (name), 0) ``` As we can see it takes three parameters: * `start` - begin of region; * `n` - length of region; * `name` - name of requester. `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: ```C struct resource { resource_size_t start; resource_size_t end; const char *name; unsigned long flags; struct resource *parent, *sibling, *child; }; ``` and contains start and end addresses of the resource, name, etc. Every `resource` structure contains pointers to the `parent`, `slibling` and `child` resources. As it has parent and childs, it means that every subset of resuorces has root `resource` structure. For example, for `I/O` ports it is `ioport_resource` structure: ```C struct resource ioport_resource = { .name = "PCI IO", .start = 0, .end = IO_SPACE_LIMIT, .flags = IORESOURCE_IO, }; EXPORT_SYMBOL(ioport_resource); ``` Or for `iomem`, it is `iomem_resource` structure: ```C struct resource iomem_resource = { .name = "PCI mem", .start = 0, .end = -1, .flags = IORESOURCE_MEM, }; ``` 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: ```C module_init(rtc_init); ``` 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: ```C r = rtc_request_region(RTC_IO_EXTENT); ``` where `rtc_request_region` calls: ```C r = request_region(RTC_PORT(0), size, "rtc"); ``` 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`: ``` ~$ sudo cat /proc/ioports | grep rtc 0070-0077 : rtc0 ``` 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: * start of the memory region; * size of the memory region; I/O memory mapping API provides functions for checking, requesting and release of a memory region as I/O ports API. There are three functions for it: * `request_mem_region` * `release_mem_region` * `check_mem_region` ``` ~$ sudo cat /proc/iomem ... ... ... be826000-be82cfff : ACPI Non-volatile Storage be82d000-bf744fff : System RAM bf745000-bfff4fff : reserved bfff5000-dc041fff : System RAM dc042000-dc0d2fff : reserved dc0d3000-dc138fff : System RAM dc139000-dc27dfff : ACPI Non-volatile Storage dc27e000-deffefff : reserved defff000-deffffff : System RAM df000000-dfffffff : RAM buffer e0000000-feafffff : PCI Bus 0000:00 e0000000-efffffff : PCI Bus 0000:01 e0000000-efffffff : 0000:01:00.0 f7c00000-f7cfffff : PCI Bus 0000:06 f7c00000-f7c0ffff : 0000:06:00.0 f7c10000-f7c101ff : 0000:06:00.0 f7c10000-f7c101ff : ahci f7d00000-f7dfffff : PCI Bus 0000:03 f7d00000-f7d3ffff : 0000:03:00.0 f7d00000-f7d3ffff : alx ... ... ... ``` 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: ```C static inline const char *e820_type_to_string(int e820_type) { switch (e820_type) { case E820_RESERVED_KERN: case E820_RAM: return "System RAM"; case E820_ACPI: return "ACPI Tables"; case E820_NVS: return "ACPI Non-volatile Storage"; case E820_UNUSABLE: return "Unusable memory"; default: return "reserved"; } } ``` and we can see them in the `/proc/iomem` (read above). 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: ```C BUILD_BUG_ON((fix_to_virt(0) + PAGE_SIZE) & ((1 << PMD_SHIFT) - 1)); ``` 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`: ``` #define NR_FIX_BTMAPS 64 #define FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS 8 #define TOTAL_FIX_BTMAPS (NR_FIX_BTMAPS * FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS) ``` and `early_ioremap_setup`: ```C void __init early_ioremap_setup(void) { int i; for (i = 0; i < FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS; i++) if (WARN_ON(prev_map[i])) break; for (i = 0; i < FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS; i++) slot_virt[i] = __fix_to_virt(FIX_BTMAP_BEGIN - NR_FIX_BTMAPS*i); } ``` the `slot_virt` and other arrays are defined in the same source code file: ```C static void __iomem *prev_map[FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS] __initdata; static unsigned long prev_size[FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS] __initdata; static unsigned long slot_virt[FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS] __initdata; ``` `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: ```C static inline pmd_t * __init early_ioremap_pmd(unsigned long addr) { pgd_t *base = __va(read_cr3()); pgd_t *pgd = &base[pgd_index(addr)]; pud_t *pud = pud_offset(pgd, addr); pmd_t *pmd = pmd_offset(pud, addr); return pmd; } ``` After this we fills `bm_pte` (early ioremap page table entries) with zeros and call the `pmd_populate_kernel` function: ```C pmd = early_ioremap_pmd(fix_to_virt(FIX_BTMAP_BEGIN)); memset(bm_pte, 0, sizeof(bm_pte)); pmd_populate_kernel(&init_mm, pmd, bm_pte); ``` `pmd_populate_kernel` takes three parameters: * `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: ```C static pte_t bm_pte[PAGE_SIZE/sizeof(pte_t)] __page_aligned_bss; ``` 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`): ```C static inline void pmd_populate_kernel(struct mm_struct *mm, pmd_t *pmd, pte_t *pte) { paravirt_alloc_pte(mm, __pa(pte) >> PAGE_SHIFT); set_pmd(pmd, __pmd(__pa(pte) | _PAGE_TABLE)); } ``` where `set_pmd` is: ```C #define set_pmd(pmdp, pmd) native_set_pmd(pmdp, pmd) ``` and `native_set_pmd` is: ```C static inline void native_set_pmd(pmd_t *pmdp, pmd_t pmd) { *pmdp = pmd; } ``` 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. Use of early ioremap -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As early `ioremap` is setup, we can use it. It provides two functions: * early_ioremap * early_iounmap 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 adresses. Techinically 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: * `phys_addr` - base physicall address of the `I/O` memory region to map on virtual addresses; * `size` - size of the `I/O` memroy region; * `prot` - page table entry bits. 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: ```C slot = -1; for (i = 0; i < FIX_BTMAPS_SLOTS; i++) { if (!prev_map[i]) { slot = i; break; } } ... ... ... prev_size[slot] = size; last_addr = phys_addr + size - 1; ``` In the next spte we can see the following code: ```C offset = phys_addr & ~PAGE_MASK; phys_addr &= PAGE_MASK; size = PAGE_ALIGN(last_addr + 1) - phys_addr; ``` Here we are using `PAGE_MASK` for clearing all bits in the `phys_addr` except the first 12 bits. `PAGE_MASK` macro is defined as: ```C #define PAGE_MASK (~(PAGE_SIZE-1)) ``` 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: ```C nrpages = size >> PAGE_SHIFT; idx = FIX_BTMAP_BEGIN - NR_FIX_BTMAPS*slot; ``` 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: ```C __flush_tlb_one(addr); ``` 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`: ```C static inline void __flush_tlb_one(unsigned long addr) { if (cpu_has_invlpg) __flush_tlb_single(addr); else __flush_tlb(); } ``` `__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: ```C native_write_cr3(native_read_cr3()); ``` 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: ```C #if defined(CONFIG_X86_INVLPG) || defined(CONFIG_X86_64) # define cpu_has_invlpg 1 #else # define cpu_has_invlpg (boot_cpu_data.x86 > 3) #endif ``` If a CPU support `invlpg` instruction, we call the `__flush_tlb_single` macro which expands to the call of the `__native_flush_tlb_single`: ```C static inline void __native_flush_tlb_single(unsigned long addr) { asm volatile("invlpg (%0)" ::"r" (addr) : "memory"); } ``` 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 finsihed 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: ```C prev_map[slot] = (void __iomem *)(offset + slot_virt[slot]); ``` and return it. 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 physicall address. And in the end it sets address of the I/O memory region to `NULL`: ```C prev_map[slot] = 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. So, this is the end! Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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).** Links -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * [apic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller) * [vsyscall](https://lwn.net/Articles/446528/) * [Intel Trusted Execution Technology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Execution_Technology) * [Xen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen) * [Real Time Clock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_clock) * [e820](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E820) * [Memory management unit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_unit) * [TLB](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_lookaside_buffer) * [Paging](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Theory/Paging.html) * [Linux kernel memory management Part 1.](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/mm/linux-mm-1.html)