kernel.
When access restrictions are added to a page table entry, we flush the
corresponding virtual address mapping from the TLB. In contrast, when
access restrictions are removed from a page table entry, we do not
flush the virtual address mapping from the TLB. This is exactly as
recommended in AMD's documentation. In effect, when access
restrictions are removed from a page table entry, AMD's MMUs will
transparently refresh a stale TLB entry. In short, this saves us from
having to perform potentially costly TLB flushes. In contrast,
Intel's MMUs are allowed to generate a spurious page fault based upon
the stale TLB entry. Usually, such spurious page faults are handled
by vm_fault() without incident. However, when we are executing
no-fault sections of the kernel, we are not allowed to execute
vm_fault(). This change introduces special-case handling for spurious
page faults that occur in no-fault sections of the kernel.
In collaboration with: kib
Tested by: gibbs (an earlier version)
I would also like to acknowledge Hiroki Sato's assistance in
diagnosing this problem.
MFC after: 1 week