Re: Question about Context register in TLB refilling

[Kevin Cernekee <cernekee@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 8:51 AM, wilbur.chan <wilbur512@gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) In linux ,esspecially in TLB refilling,  is Context[PTEBase] used
> to store cpuid? (refer to build_get_pgde32 in tlbex.c)

On 32-bit systems, PTEBase stores a byte offset that can be added to
&pgd_current[0].  i.e. smp_processor_id() * sizeof(unsigned long)

So the TLB refill handler can find pgd for the current CPU using code
that looks something like this:

   0:   401b2000        mfc0    k1,c0_context
   4:   3c1a8054        lui     k0,0x8054
   8:   001bddc2        srl     k1,k1,0x17
   c:   035bd821        addu    k1,k0,k1
...
  14:   8f7b5008        lw      k1,20488(k1)

where pgd_current is at 0x8054_5008, and PTEBase is 0, 4, 8, 12, ...

See also: TLBMISS_HANDLER_SETUP().

For 64-bit systems with CONFIG_MIPS_PGD_C0_CONTEXT, it looks like a
direct pgd pointer is now being stored in Context, to speed up the TLB
handlers.