## 6.1: Virtual memory management

The RPi OS now can run and schedule user processes, but the isolation between them is not complete - all processes and the kernel itself share the same memory. This allows any process to easily access somebody else’s data and even kernel data. And even if we assume that all our processes are not malicious, there is another drawback: before allocating memory each process need to know which memory regions are already occupied - this makes memory allocation for a process more complicated.

### Translation process

In this lesson, we are going to fix all issues mentioned above by introducing virtual memory. Virtual memory provides each process with an abstraction that makes it think that it occupies all available memory. Each time a process needs to access some memory location it uses virtual address, which is translated into a physical address. The process of translation is done completely transparent for the process and is performed by a special device: MMU (Memory Mapping Unit). The MMU uses translation tables in order to translate a virtual address into a physical address. The process of translation is described in the following diagram.

                           Virtual address                                                                 Physical Memory
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+                                +-----------------_+
|         | PGD Index | PUD Index | PMD Index | PTE Index | Page offset |                                |                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+                                |                  |
63        47     |    38      |   29     |    20    |     11      |     0                                |     Page N       |
|            |          |          |             +--------------------+           +---->+------------------+
|            |          |          +---------------------+            |           |     |                  |
+------+            |          |                                |            |           |     |                  |
|                   |          +----------+                     |            |           |     |------------------|
+------+  |        PGD        |                     |                     |            +---------------->| Physical address |
| ttbr |---->+-------------+  |           PUD       |                     |                        |     |------------------|
+------+  |  |             |  | +->+-------------+  |          PMD        |                        |     |                  |
|  +-------------+  | |  |             |  | +->+-------------+  |          PTE           |     +------------------+
+->| PUD address |----+  +-------------+  | |  |             |  | +->+--------------+    |     |                  |
+-------------+  +--->| PMD address |----+  +-------------+  | |  |              |    |     |                  |
|             |       +-------------+  +--->| PTE address |----+  +-------------_+    |     |                  |
+-------------+       |             |       +-------------+  +--->| Page address |----+     |                  |
+-------------+       |             |       +--------------+          |                  |
+-------------+       |              |          |                  |
+--------------+          +------------------+


The following facts are critical to understand this diagram and memory translation process in general.

• Memory for a process is always allocated in pages. A page is a contignious memory region 4KB in size (ARM processors support larger pages, but 4KB is the most common case and we are going to limit our discussion only to this page size).
• Page tables have a hierarchical structure. An item in any of the tables contains an address of the next table in the hierarchy.
• There are 4 levels in the table hierarchy: PGD (Page Global Directory), PUD (Page Upper Directory), PMD (Page Middle Directory), PTE (Page Table Entry). PTE is the last table in the hierarchy and it points to the actual page in the physical memory.
• Memory translation process starts by locating the address of PGD (Page Global Directory) table. The address of this table is stored in the ttbr0_el1 register. Each process has its own copy of all page tables, including PGD, and therefore each process must keep its PGD address. During a context switch, PGD address of the next process is loaded into the ttbr0_el1 register.
• Next, MMU uses PGD pointer and virtual address to calculate the corresponding physical address. All virtual addresses use only 48 out of 64 available bits. When doing a translation, MMU splits an address into 4 parts:
• Bits [39 - 47] contain an index in the PGD table. MMU uses this index to find the location of the PUD.
• Bits [30 - 38] contain an index in the PUD table. MMU uses this index to find the location of the PMD.
• Bits [21 - 29] contain an index in the PMD table. MMU uses this index to find the location of the PTE.
• Bits [12 - 20] contain an index in the PTE table. MMU uses this index to find a page in the physical memory.
• Bits [0 - 11] contain an offset in the physical page. MMU uses this offset to determine the exact position in the previously found page that corresponds to the original virtual address.

Now, let’s make a small exercise and calculate the size of a page table. From the diagram above we know that index in a page table occupies 9 bits (this is true for all page table levels). This means that each page table contains 2^9 = 512 items. Each item in a page table is an address of either the next page table in the hierarchy or a physical page in case of PTE. As we are using a 64-bit processor, each address must be 64 bit or 8 bytes in size. Putting all of this together we can calculate that the size of a page table must be 512 * 8 = 4096 bytes or 4 KB. But this is exactly the size of a page! This might give you an intuition why MMU designers chose such numbers.

### Section mapping

There is one more thing that I want to discuss before we start looking at the source code: section mapping. Sometimes there is the need to map large parts of continuous physical memory. In this case, instead of 4 KB pages, we can directly map 2 MB blocks that are called sections. This allows to eliminate 1 level of translation. The translation diagram, in this case, looks like the following.

                           Virtual address                                               Physical Memory
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+              +-----------------_+
|         | PGD Index | PUD Index | PMD Index |      Section offset     |              |                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+              |                  |
63        47     |    38      |   29     |    20            |           0              |    Section N     |
|            |          |                  |                    +---->+------------------+
|            |          |                  |                    |     |                  |
+------+            |          |                  |                    |     |                  |
|                   |          +----------+       |                    |     |------------------|
+------+  |        PGD        |                     |       +------------------------->| Physical address |
| ttbr |---->+-------------+  |           PUD       |                            |     |------------------|
+------+  |  |             |  | +->+-------------+  |            PMD             |     |                  |
|  +-------------+  | |  |             |  | +->+-----------------+     |     +------------------+
+->| PUD address |----+  +-------------+  | |  |                 |     |     |                  |
+-------------+  +--->| PMD address |----+  +-----------------+     |     |                  |
|             |       +-------------+  +--->| Section address |-----+     |                  |
+-------------+       |             |       +-----------------+           |                  |
+-------------+       |                 |           |                  |
+-----------------+           |                  |
+------------------+


As you can see the difference here is that now PMD contains a pointer to the physical section. Also, the offset occupies 21 bits instead of 12 bits (this is because we need 21 bits to encode a 2MB range)

### Page descriptor format

You may ask how does the MMU know whether PMD item points to a PTE or a physical 2 MB section? In order to answer this question we need to take a closer look at the structure of a page table item. Now I can confess that I wasn’t quite accurate when claiming that an item in a page table always contains an address of either next page table or a physical page: each such item includes some other information as well. An item in a page table is called “descriptor”. A description has a special format, which is described below.

                           Descriptor format
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Upper attributes | Address (bits 47:12) | Lower attributes | Block/table bit | Valid bit |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
63                 47                     11                 2                 1           0


The key thing to understand here is that each descriptor always points to something that is page aligned (either a physical page, a section or the next page table in the hierarchy). This means that last 12 bits of the address, stored in a descriptor, will always be 0. This also means that MUU can use those bits to store something more useful - and that is exactly what it does. Now let me explain the meaning of all bits in a descriptor.

• Bit 0 This bit must be set to 1 for all valid descriptors. If MMU encounter non-valid descriptor during translation process a synchronous exception is generated. The kernel then should handle this exception, allocate a new page and prepare a correct descriptor (We will look in details on how this works a little bit later)
• Bit 1 This bit indicates whether the current descriptor points to a next page table in the hierarchy (we call such descriptor a “table descriptor”) or it points instead to a physical page or a section (such descriptors are called “block descriptors”).
• Bits [11:2] Those bits are ignored for table descriptors. For block descriptors they contain some attributes that control, for example, whether the mapped page is cachable, executable, etc.
• Bits [47:12]. This is the place where the address that a descriptor points to is stored. As I mentioned previously, only bits [47:12] of the address need to be stored, because all other bits are always 0.
• Bits [63:48] Another set of attributes.

### Configuring page attributes

As I mentioned in the previous section, each block descriptor contains a set of attributes that controls various virtual page parameters. However, the attributes that are most important for our discussion are not configured directly in the descriptor. Instead, ARM processors implement a trick, which allows them to save some space in the descriptor attributes section.

ARM.v8 architecture introduces mair_el1 register. This register consists of 8 sections, each being 8 bits long. Each such section configures a common set of attributes. A descriptor then specifies just an index of the mair section, instead of specifying all attributes directly. This allows using only 3 bits in the descriptor to reference a mair section. The meaning of each bit in the mair section is described on the page 2609 of the AArch64-Reference-Manual. In the RPi OS we are using only a few of available attribute options. Here is the code that prepares values for the mair register.

/*
* Memory region attributes:
*
*   n = AttrIndx[2:0]
*            n    MAIR
*   DEVICE_nGnRnE    000    00000000
*   NORMAL_NC        001    01000100
*/
#define MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE         0x0
#define MT_NORMAL_NC            0x1
#define MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE_FLAGS        0x00
#define MT_NORMAL_NC_FLAGS          0x44
#define MAIR_VALUE            (MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE_FLAGS << (8 * MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE)) | (MT_NORMAL_NC_FLAGS << (8 * MT_NORMAL_NC))


Here we are using only 2 out of 8 available slots in the mair registers. The first one corresponds to device memory and second to normal non-cachable memory. MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE and MT_NORMAL_NC are indexes that we are going to use in block descriptors, MT_DEVICE_nGnRnE_FLAGS and MT_NORMAL_NC_FLAGS are values that we are storing in the first 2 slots of the mair_el1 register.

### Kernel vs user virtual memory

After the MMU is switched on, each memory access must use virtual memory instead of physical memory. One consequence of this fact is that the kernel itself must be prepared to use virtual memory and maintain its own set of page tables. One possible solution could be to reload pgd register each time we switch from user to kernel mode. The problem is that switching pgd is very expensive operation because it requires the invalidation of all caches. Having in mind how often we need to switch from user mode to kernel mode, this solution would make caching completely useless and therefore this solution is never used in OS development. What operating system are doing instead is splitting address space into 2 parts: user space and kernel space. 32-bit architectures usually allocate first 3 GB of the address space for user programs and reserve last 1 GB for the kernel. 64-bit architectures are much more favorable in this regard because of their huge address space. And even more: ARM.v8 architecture comes with a native feature that can be used to easily implement user/kernel address split.

There are 2 registers that can hold the address of the PGD: ttbr0_el1 and ttbr1_el1. As you might remember we are using only 48 bits in the addresses out of 64 available, so the upper 16 bits can be used to distinguish between ttbr0 and ttbr1 translation processes. If upper 16 bits are all equal to 0 then PGD address stored in ttbr0_el1 is used, and if the address starts with 0xffff(first 16 bit are all equal to 1) then PGD address stored in the ttbr1_el1 is selected. The architecture also ensures that a process running at EL0 can never access virtual addresses started with 0xffff without generating a synchronous exception. From this description, you can easily infer that a pointer to the kernel PGD is stored in the ttbr1_el1 and is kept there throughout the life of the kernel, and ttbr0_el1 is used to store current user process PGD.

One implication of this approach is that all absolute kernel addresses must start with 0xffff. There are 2 places in the RPi OS source code, were we handle this. In the linker script we specify base address of the image as 0xffff000000000000. This will make the compiler think that our image is going to be loaded at 0xffff000000000000 address, and therefore whenever it needs to generate an absolute address it will make it right. (There are a few more changes to the linker script, but we will discuss them later.)

There is one more place were we hardcode absolute kernel base addresses: in the header where we define device base address. Now we will access all device memory starting from 0xffff00003F000000 Certainly, in order for this to work, we need first to map all memory, which kernel needs to access. In the next section we will explore in detail the code that creates this mapping.

### Initializing kernel page tables

The process of creating kernel page tables is something that we need to handle very early in the boot process. It starts in the boot.S file. Right after we switch to EL1 and clear the BSS __create_page_tables function is called. Let’s examine it line by line.

__create_page_tables:
mov    x29, x30                        // save return address


First, the function saves x30 (link register). As we are going to call other functions from __create_page_tables, x30 will be overwritten. Usually x30 is saved on the stack but, as we know that we are not going to use recursion and nobody else will use x29 during __create_page_tables execution, this simple method of preserving link register also works fine.

    adrp    x0, pg_dir
mov    x1, #PG_DIR_SIZE
bl     memzero


Next, we clear the initial page tables area. An important thing to understand here is where this area is located and how do we know its size? Initial page tables area is defined in the linker script - this means that we are allocating the spot for this area in the kernel image itself. Calculating the size of this area is a little bit trickier. First, we need to understand the structure of the initial kernel page tables. We know that all our mappings are all inside 1 GB region (this is the size of RPi memory). One PGD descriptor can cover 2^39 = 512 GB and one PUD descriptor can cover 2^30 = 1 GB of continuous virtual mapping area. (Those values are calculated based on the PGD and PUD indexes location in the virtual address.) This means that we need just one PGD and one PUD to map the whole RPi memory, and even more - both PGD and PUD will contain a single descriptor. If we have a single PUD entry there also must be a single PMD table, to which this entry will point. (Single PMD entry covers 2 MB, there are 512 items in a PMD, so in total the whole PMD table covers the same 1 GB of memory that is covered by a single PUD descriptor.) Next, we know that we need to map 1 GB region of memory, which is a multiple of 2 MB - so we can use section mapping. This means that we don’t need PTE at all. So in total, we need 3 pages: one for PGD, PUD and PMD - this is precisely the size of the initial page table area.

Now we are going to step outside __create_page_tables function and take a look on 2 essential macros: create_table_entry and create_block_map.

create_table_entry is responsible for allocating a new page table (In our case either PGD or PUD) The source code is listed below.

    .macro    create_table_entry, tbl, virt, shift, tmp1, tmp2
lsr    \tmp1, \virt, #\shift
and    \tmp1, \tmp1, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1            // table index
orr    \tmp2, \tmp2, #MM_TYPE_PAGE_TABLE
str    \tmp2, [\tbl, \tmp1, lsl #3]
add    \tbl, \tbl, #PAGE_SIZE                    // next level table page
.endm


This macro accepts the following arguments.

• tbl - a pointer to a memory region were new table has to be allocated.
• virt - virtual address that we are currently mapping.
• shift - shift that we need to apply to the virtual address in order to extract current table index. (39 in case of PGD and 30 in case of PUD)
• tmp1, tmp2 - temporary registers.

This macro is very important, so we are going to spend some time understanding it.

    lsr    \tmp1, \virt, #\shift
and    \tmp1, \tmp1, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1            // table index


The first two lines of the macro are responsible for extracting table index from the virtual address. We are applying right shift first to strip everything to the right of the index and then using and operation to strip everything to the left.

    add    \tmp2, \tbl, #PAGE_SIZE


Then the address of the next page table is calculated. Here we are using the convention that all our initial page tables are located in one continuous memory region. We simply assume that the next page table in the hierarchy will be adjacent to the current page table.

    orr    \tmp2, \tmp2, #MM_TYPE_PAGE_TABLE


Next, a pointer to the next page table in the hierarchy is converted to a table descriptor. (A descriptor must have 2 lower bits set to 1)

    str    \tmp2, [\tbl, \tmp1, lsl #3]


Then the descriptor is stored in the current page table. We use previously calculated index to find the right spot in the table.

    add    \tbl, \tbl, #PAGE_SIZE                    // next level table page


Finally, we change tbl parameter to point to the next page table in the hierarchy. This is convenient because now we can call create_table_entry one more time for the next table in the hierarchy without making any adjustments to the tbl parameter. This is precisely what we are doing in the create_pgd_entry macro, which is just a wrapper that allocates both PGD and PUD.

Next important macro iscreate_block_map As you might guess this macro is responsible for populating entries of the PMD table. It looks like the following.

    .macro    create_block_map, tbl, phys, start, end, flags, tmp1
lsr    \start, \start, #SECTION_SHIFT
and    \start, \start, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1            // table index
lsr    \end, \end, #SECTION_SHIFT
and    \end, \end, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1                // table end index
lsr    \phys, \phys, #SECTION_SHIFT
mov    \tmp1, #\flags
orr    \phys, \tmp1, \phys, lsl #SECTION_SHIFT            // table entry
9999:    str    \phys, [\tbl, \start, lsl #3]                // store the entry
add    \start, \start, #1                    // next entry
add    \phys, \phys, #SECTION_SIZE                // next block
cmp    \start, \end
b.ls    9999b
.endm


Parameters here are a little bit different.

• tbl - a pointer to the PMD table.
• phys - the start of the physical region to be mapped.
• start - virtual address of the first section to be mapped.
• end - virtual address of the last section to be mapped.
• flags - flags that need to be copied into lower attributes of the block descriptor.
• tmp1 - temporary register.

Now, let’s examine the source.

    lsr    \start, \start, #SECTION_SHIFT
and    \start, \start, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1            // table index


Those 2 lines extract the table index from start virtual address. This is done exactly in the same way as we did it before in the create_table_entry macro.

    lsr    \end, \end, #SECTION_SHIFT
and    \end, \end, #PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1                // table end index


The same thing is repeated for the end address. Now both start and end contains not virtual addresses, but indexes in the PMD table, corresponding to the original addresses.

    lsr    \phys, \phys, #SECTION_SHIFT
mov    \tmp1, #\flags
orr    \phys, \tmp1, \phys, lsl #SECTION_SHIFT            // table entry


Next, block descriptor is prepared and stored in the tmp1 variable. In order to prepare the descriptor phys parameter is first shifted to right then shifted back and merged with the flags parameter using orr instruction. If you wonder why do we have to shift the address back and forth - the answer is that this clears first 21 bit in the phys address and makes our macro universal, allowing it to be used with any address, not just the first address of the section.

9999:    str    \phys, [\tbl, \start, lsl #3]                // store the entry
add    \start, \start, #1                    // next entry
add    \phys, \phys, #SECTION_SIZE                // next block
cmp    \start, \end
b.ls    9999b


The final part of the function is executed inside a loop. Here we first store current descriptor at the right index in the PMD table. Next, we increase current index by 1 and update the descriptor to point to the next section. We repeat the same process until current index becomes equal to the last index.

Now, when you understand how create_table_entry and create_block_map macros work, it will be straightforward to understand the rest of the __create_page_tables function.

    adrp    x0, pg_dir
mov    x1, #VA_START
create_pgd_entry x0, x1, x2, x3


Here we create both PGD and PUD. We configure them to start mapping from VA_START virtual address. Because of the semantics of the create_table_entry macro, after create_pgd_entry finishes x0 will contain the address of the next table in the hierarchy - namely PMD.

    /* Mapping kernel and init stack*/
mov     x1, xzr                            // start mapping from physical offset 0
mov     x2, #VA_START                        // first virtual address
ldr    x3, =(VA_START + DEVICE_BASE - SECTION_SIZE)        // last virtual address
create_block_map x0, x1, x2, x3, MMU_FLAGS, x4


Next, we create virtual mapping of the whole memory, excluding device registers region. We use MMU_FLAGS constant as flags parameter - this marks all sections to be mapped as normal noncacheable memory. (Note, that MM_ACCESS flag is also specified as part of MMU_FLAGS constant. Without this flag each memory access will generate a synchronous exception.)

    /* Mapping device memory*/
mov     x1, #DEVICE_BASE                    // start mapping from device base address
ldr     x2, =(VA_START + DEVICE_BASE)                // first virtual address
ldr    x3, =(VA_START + PHYS_MEMORY_SIZE - SECTION_SIZE)    // last virtual address
create_block_map x0, x1, x2, x3, MMU_DEVICE_FLAGS, x4


Then device registers region is mapped. This is done exactly in the same way as in the previous code sample, with the exception that we are now using different start and end addresses and different flags.

    mov    x30, x29                        // restore return address
ret


Finally, the function restored link register and returns to the caller.

### Configuring page translation

Now page tables are created and we are back to the el1_entry function. But there is still some work to be done before we can switch on the MMU. Here is what happens.

    mov    x0, #VA_START


We are updating init task stack pointer. Now it uses a virtual address, instead of a physical one. (Therefore it could be used only after MMU is on.)

    adrp    x0, pg_dir
msr    ttbr1_el1, x0


ttbr1_el1 is updated to point to the previously populated PGD table.

    ldr    x0, =(TCR_VALUE)
msr    tcr_el1, x0


tcr_el1 of Translation Control Register is responsible for configuring some general parameters of the MMU. (For example, here we configure that both kernel and user page tables should use 4 KB pages.)

    ldr    x0, =(MAIR_VALUE)
msr    mair_el1, x0


We already discussed mair register in the “Configuring page attributes” section. Here we just set its value.

    ldr    x2, =kernel_main

mov    x0, #SCTLR_MMU_ENABLED
msr    sctlr_el1, x0

br     x2


msr sctlr_el1, x0 is the line where MMU is actually enabled. Now we can jump to the kernel_main function. An interesting question is why can’t we just execute br kernel_main instruction? Indeed, we can’t. Before the MMU was enabled we have been working with physical memory, the kernel is loaded at a physical offset 0 - this means that current program counter is very close to 0. Switching on the MMU doesn’t update the program counter. If we now execute br kernel_main instruction, this instruction will use offset relative to the current program counter and jumps to the place were kernel_main would have been if we don’t turn on the MMU. ldr x2, =kernel_main on the other hand loads x2 with the absolute address of the kernel_main function. Because of the fact that we set the image base address to 0xffff000000000000 in the linker script, the absolute address of the kernel_main function will be calculated as an offset from the beginning of the image plus 0xffff000000000000 - which is exactly what we need. Another important thing that you need to understand is why ldr x2, =kernel_main instruction must be executed before we turn on the MMU. The reason is that ldr also uses pc relative offset, so if we try to execute this instruction after MMU is on but before we jump to the image base address, the instruction will generate a page fault.

### Allocating user processes

If you work with a real OS you would probably expect it to be capable of reading your program from the file system and executing it. This is different for the RPi OS - it doesn’t have file system support yet. We were not bothered by this fact in the previous lessons, because user processes shared the same address space with the kernel. Now things have changed and each process should have its own address space, so we need to figure out how to store the user program so we can later load it into the newly created process. The trick that I end up implementing is to store the user program in a separate section of the kernel image. Here is the relevant section of the linker script that is responsible for doing this.

    . = ALIGN(0x00001000);
user_begin = .;
.text.user : { build/user* (.text) }
.rodata.user : { build/user* (.rodata) }
.data.user : { build/user* (.data) }
.bss.user : { build/user* (.bss) }
user_end = .;


I made a convention that user level source code should be defined in the files with user prefix. The linker script then can isolate all user related code in a continuous region and define user_begin and user_end variables, which mark the beginning and end of this region. In this way we can simply copy everything between user_begin and user_end to the newly allocated process address space, thus simulating loading a user program. This is simple enough and works well for our current purpose, but after we implement file system support and will be able to load ELF files we will get rid of this hack.

Right now there are 2 files that are compiled in the user region.

• user_sys.S This file contains definitions of the syscall wrapper functions. The RPi OS still supports the same syscalls as in the previous lesson, with the exception that now instead of clone syscall we are going to use fork syscall. The difference is that fork copies process virtual memory, and that is something we want to try doing.
• user.c User program source code. Almost the same as we’ve used in the previous lesson.

### Creating first user process

As it was the case in the previous lesson, move_to_user_mode function is responsible for creating the first user process. We call this function from a kernel thread. Here is how we do this.

void kernel_process(){
printf("Kernel process started. EL %d\r\n", get_el());
unsigned long begin = (unsigned long)&user_begin;
unsigned long end = (unsigned long)&user_end;
unsigned long process = (unsigned long)&user_process;
int err = move_to_user_mode(begin, end - begin, process - begin);
if (err < 0){
printf("Error while moving process to user mode\n\r");
}
}


Now we need 3 arguments to call move_to_user_mode: a pointer to the beginning of the user code area, size of the area and offset of the startup function inside it. This information is calculated based on the previously discussed user_begin and user_end variables.

move_to_user_mode function is listed below.

int move_to_user_mode(unsigned long start, unsigned long size, unsigned long pc)
{
regs->pstate = PSR_MODE_EL0t;
regs->pc = pc;
regs->sp = 2 *  PAGE_SIZE;
unsigned long code_page = allocate_user_page(current, 0);
if (code_page == 0)    {
return -1;
}
memcpy(code_page, start, size);
set_pgd(current->mm.pgd);
return 0;
}


Now let’s try to inspect in details what is going on here.

    struct pt_regs *regs = task_pt_regs(current);


As it was the case in the previous lesson, we obtain a pointer to pt_regs area and set pstate, so that after kernel_exit we will end up in EL0.

    regs->pc = pc;


pc now points to the offset of the startup function in the user region.

    regs->sp = 2 *  PAGE_SIZE;


We made a simple convention that our user program will not exceed 1 page in size. We allocate the second page to the stack.

    unsigned long code_page = allocate_user_page(current, 0);
if (code_page == 0)    {
return -1;
}


allocate_user_page reserves 1 memory page and maps it to the virtual address, provided as a second argument. In the process of mapping it populates page tables, associated with the current process. We will investigate in details how this function works later in this chapter.

    memcpy(code_page, start, size);


Next, we are going to copy the whole user region to the new address space (in the page that we have just mapped), starting from offset 0, so the offset in the user region will become an actual virtual address of the starting point.

    set_pgd(current->mm.pgd);


Finally, we call set_pgd, which updates ttbr0_el1 register and thus activate current process translation tables.

### TLB (Translation lookaside buffer)

If you take a look at the set_pgd function you will see that after it sets ttbr0_el1 it also clears TLB (Translation lookaside buffer). TLB is a cache that is designed specifically to store the mapping between physical and virtual pages. The first time some virtual address is mapped into a physical one this mapping is stored in TLB. Next time we need to access the same page we no longer need to perform full page table walk. Therefore it makes perfect sense that we invalidate TLB after updating page tables - otherwise our change will not be applied for the pages already stored in the TLB.

Usually, we try to avoid using all caches for simplicity, but without TLB any memory access would become extremely inefficient, and I don’t think that it is even possible to completely disable TLB. Besides, TLB doesn’t add any other complexity to the OS, in spite of the fact that we must clean it after switching ttbr0_el1.

### Mapping a virtual page

We have seen previously how allocate_user_page function is used - now it is time to see what is inside it.

unsigned long allocate_user_page(struct task_struct *task, unsigned long va) {
unsigned long page = get_free_page();
if (page == 0) {
return 0;
}
return page + VA_START;
}


This function allocates a new page, maps it to the provided virtual address and returns a pointer to the page. When we say “a pointer” now we need to distinguish between 3 things: a pointer to a physical page, a pointer inside kernel address space and a pointer inside user address space - all these 3 different pointers can lead to the same location in memory. In our case page variable is a physical pointer and the return value is a pointer inside kernel address space. This pointer can be easily calculated because we linearly map the whole physical memory starting at VA_START virtual address. We also don’t need to worry about allocating new kernel page table because all of the memory is already mapped in boot.S. User mapping is still required to be created and this happens in the map_page function, which we will explore next.

void map_page(struct task_struct *task, unsigned long va, unsigned long page){
unsigned long pgd;
}
int new_table;
unsigned long pud = map_table((unsigned long *)(pgd + VA_START), PGD_SHIFT, va, &new_table);
if (new_table) {
}
unsigned long pmd = map_table((unsigned long *)(pud + VA_START) , PUD_SHIFT, va, &new_table);
if (new_table) {
}
unsigned long pte = map_table((unsigned long *)(pmd + VA_START), PMD_SHIFT, va, &new_table);
if (new_table) {
}
map_table_entry((unsigned long *)(pte + VA_START), va, page);
struct user_page p = {page, va};
}


map_page in some way duplicates what we’ve been doing in the __create_page_tables function: it allocates and populates a page table hierarchy. There are 3 important difference, however: now we are doing this in C, instead of assembler. map_page maps a single page, instead of the whole memory, and use normal page mapping, instead of section mapping.

There are 2 important functions involved in the process: map_table and map_table_entry.

map_table is listed below.

unsigned long map_table(unsigned long *table, unsigned long shift, unsigned long va, int* new_table) {
unsigned long index = va >> shift;
index = index & (PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1);
if (!table[index]){
*new_table = 1;
unsigned long next_level_table = get_free_page();
unsigned long entry = next_level_table | MM_TYPE_PAGE_TABLE;
table[index] = entry;
return next_level_table;
} else {
*new_table = 0;
}
}


This function has the following arguments.

• table This is a pointer to the parent page table. This page table is assumed to be already allocated, but might be empty.
• shift This argument is used to extract table index from the provided virtual address.
• va Virtual address itself.
• new_table This is an output parameter. It is set to 1 if a new child table has been allocated and left 0 otherwise.

You can think of this function as an analog of the create_table_entry macro. It extracts table index from the virtual address and prepares a descriptor in the parent table that points to the child table. Unlike create_table_entry macro we don’t assume that the child table should be adjacent into memory with the parent table - instead, we rely on get_free_table function to return whatever page is available. It also might be the case that child table was already allocated (This might happen if child page table covers the region where another page has been allocated previously.). In this case we set new_table to 0 and read child page table address from the parent table.

map_page calls map_table 3 times: once for PGD, PUD and PMD. The last call allocates PTE and sets a descriptor in the PMD. Next, map_table_entry is called. You can see this function below.

void map_table_entry(unsigned long *pte, unsigned long va, unsigned long pa) {
unsigned long index = va >> PAGE_SHIFT;
index = index & (PTRS_PER_TABLE - 1);
unsigned long entry = pa | MMU_PTE_FLAGS;
pte[index] = entry;
}


map_table_entry extracts PTE index from the virtual address and then prepares and sets PTE descriptor. It is similar to what we’ve been doing in the create_block_map macro.

That’s it about user page tables allocation, but map_page is responsible for one more important role: it keeps track of the pages that have been allocated during the process of virtual address mapping. All such pages are stored in the kernel_pages array. We need this array to be able to clean up allocated pages after a task exits. There is also user_pages array, which is also populated by the map_page function. This array store information about the correspondence between process virtual pages any physical pages. We need this information in order to be able to copy process virtual memory during fork (More on this later).

### Forking a process

Before we move forward let me summarize where we are so far: we’ve seen how first user process is created, its page tables populated, source code copied to the proper location and stack initialized. After all of this preparation, the process is ready to run. The code that is executed inside user process is listed below.

void loop(char* str)
{
char buf[2] = {""};
while (1){
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++){
buf[0] = str[i];
call_sys_write(buf);
user_delay(1000000);
}
}
}

void user_process()
{
call_sys_write("User process\n\r");
int pid = call_sys_fork();
if (pid < 0) {
call_sys_write("Error during fork\n\r");
call_sys_exit();
return;
}
if (pid == 0){
loop("abcde");
} else {
loop("12345");
}
}


The code itself is very simple. The only tricky part is the semantics of the fork system call. Unlike clone, when doing fork we don’t need to provide the function that needs to be executed in a new process. Also, the fork wrapper function is much easier than the clone one. All of this is possible because of the fact that fork make a full copy of the process virtual address space, so the fork wrapper function return twice: one time in the original process and one time in the new one. At this point, we have two identical processes, with identical stacks and pc positions. The only difference is the return value of the fork syscall: it returns child PID in the parent process and 0 in the child process. Starting from this point both processes begin completely independent life and can modify their stacks and write different things using same addresses in memory - all of this without affecting one another.

Now let’s see how fork system call is implemented. copy_process function does most of the job.

int copy_process(unsigned long clone_flags, unsigned long fn, unsigned long arg)
{
preempt_disable();

unsigned long page = allocate_kernel_page();
p = (struct task_struct *) page;

if (!p)
return -1;

p->cpu_context.x19 = fn;
p->cpu_context.x20 = arg;
} else {
struct pt_regs * cur_regs = task_pt_regs(current);
*childregs = *cur_regs;
childregs->regs[0] = 0;
copy_virt_memory(p);
}
p->flags = clone_flags;
p->priority = current->priority;
p->counter = p->priority;
p->preempt_count = 1; //disable preemtion until schedule_tail

p->cpu_context.pc = (unsigned long)ret_from_fork;
p->cpu_context.sp = (unsigned long)childregs;

preempt_enable();
return pid;
}


This function looks almost exactly the same as in the previous lesson with one exception: when copying user processes, now, instead of modifying new process stack pointer and program counter, we instead call copy_virt_memory. copy_virt_memory looks like this.

int copy_virt_memory(struct task_struct *dst) {
for (int i = 0; i < src->mm.user_pages_count; i++) {
unsigned long kernel_va = allocate_user_page(dst, src->mm.user_pages[i].virt_addr);
if( kernel_va == 0) {
return -1;
}
}
return 0;
}


It iterates over user_pages array, which contains all pages, allocated by the current process. Note, that in user_pages array we store only pages that are actually available to the process and contain its source code or data; we don’t include here page table pages, which are stored in kernel_pages array. Next, for each page, we allocate another empty page and copy the original page content there. We also map the new page using the same virtual address, that is used by the original one. This is how we get the exact copy of the original process address space.

All other details of the forking procedure work exactly in the same way, as they have been in the previous lesson.

### Allocating new pages on demand

If you go back and take a look at the move_to_user_mode function, you may notice that we only map a single page, starting at offset 0. But we also assume that the second page will be used as a stack. Why don’t we map the second page as well? If you think it is a bug, it is not - it is a feature! Stack page, as well as any other page that a process needs to access will be mapped as soon as it will be requested for the first time. Now we are going to explore the inner-workings of this mechanism.

When a process tries to access some address which belongs to the page that is not yet mapped a synchronous exception is generated. This is the second type of synchronous exception that we are going to support (the first type is an exception generated by the svc instruction which is a system call). Synchronous exception handler now looks like the following.

el0_sync:
kernel_entry 0
mrs    x25, esr_el1                // read the syndrome register
lsr    x24, x25, #ESR_ELx_EC_SHIFT        // exception class
cmp    x24, #ESR_ELx_EC_SVC64            // SVC in 64-bit state
b.eq    el0_svc
cmp    x24, #ESR_ELx_EC_DABT_LOW        // data abort in EL0
b.eq    el0_da
handle_invalid_entry 0, SYNC_ERROR


Here we use esr_el1 register to determine exception type. If it is a page fault exception (or, which is the same, data access exception) el0_da function is called.

el0_da:
bl    enable_irq
mrs    x0, far_el1
mrs    x1, esr_el1
bl    do_mem_abort
cmp x0, 0
b.eq 1f
handle_invalid_entry 0, DATA_ABORT_ERROR
1:
bl disable_irq
kernel_exit 0


el0_da redirects the main work to the do_mem_abort function. This function takes two arguments

1. The memory address which we tried to access. This address is taken from far_el1 register (Fault address register)
2. The content of the esr_el1 (Exception syndrome register)

do_mem_abort is listed below.

int do_mem_abort(unsigned long addr, unsigned long esr) {
unsigned long dfs = (esr & 0b111111);
if ((dfs & 0b111100) == 0b100) {
unsigned long page = get_free_page();
if (page == 0) {
return -1;
}
ind++;
if (ind > 2){
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
return -1;
}


In order to understand this function, you need to know a little bit about the specifics of that esr_el1 register. Bits [32:26] of this register are called “Exception Class”. We check those bits in the el0_sync handler to determine whether it is a syscall, or a data abort exception or potentially something else. Exception class determines the meaning of bits [24:0] - those bits are usually used to provide additional information about the exception. The meaning of [24:0] bits in case of the data abort exception is described on the page 2460 of the AArch64-Reference-Manual. In general, data abort exception can happen in many different scenarios (it could be a permission fault, or address size fault or a lot of other things). We are only interested in a translation fault which happens when some of the page tables for the current virtual address are not initialized. So in the first 2 lines of the do_mem_abort` function, we check whether the current exception is actually a translation fault. If yes we allocate a new page and map it to the requested virtual address. All of this happens completely transparent for the user program - it doesn’t notice that some of the memory accesses were interrupted and new page tables were allocated in the meantime.

### Conclusion

This was a long and difficult chapter, but I hope it was useful as well. Virtual memory is really one of the most fundamental pieces of any operating system and I am glad we’ve passed through this chapter and, hopefully, started to understand how it works at the lowest level. With the introduction of virtual memory we now have full process isolation, but the RPi OS is still far from completion. It still doesn’t support file systems, drivers, signals and interrupt waitlists, networking and a lot of other useful concepts, and we will continue to uncover them in the upcoming lessons.

##### Next Page

6.2 Virtual memory management: Linux (in progress)
6.3 jump forward to Virtual memory management: Exercises