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SubjectRe: Assignment of GDT entries
Linus Torvalds wrote:
> These _used_ to be the "user CS/DS" respectively, but that got changed
> around by me when did the "sysenter" support.
>

So does this mean that moving the user-visible cs/ds isn't likely to
break stuff, if it has been done before?

> The sysenter logic (or, more properly, the sysexit one) requires that the
> user code segment number is the same as the kernel code segment +2 (ie
> "+16" in actual selector term). And the user data segment needs to be +3.
>

Yep, I'm aware of that constraint.

> And segment #8 (ie 0x40) is special (TLS segment #3), of course.
> Anybody who wants to emulate windows or use the BIOS needs to use that for
> their "common BIOS area" thing, iirc.
>

Do you mean that something like dosemu/Wine needs to be able to use GDT
#8? Or is it only used in kernel code?

> See above. The kernel and user segments have to be moved as a block of
> four, and obviously we'd like to keep them in the same cacheline too.
> Also, the cacheline that contains segment #8/0x40 is not available,

Why's that? That cacheline (assuming 64 byte line size) already
contains the user/kernel/cs/ds descriptors.

I'm thinking of putting together a patch to change the descriptor use to:

8 - TLS #1
9 - TLS #2
10 - TLS #3
11 - Kernel PDA
12 - Kernel CS
13 - Kernel DS
14 - User CS
15 - User DS


This has the advantage of leaving the user cs/ds unchanged. From what
people had said so far, this should be OK, other than making the heavily
used TLS #1 share the BIOS common area entry number. If this needs to
be usable by userspace for something special, then making it TLS #1
won't fly...

Alternatively, maybe:

0 - NULL
1 - Kernel PDA
2 - Kernel CS
3 - Kernel DS
4 - User CS
5 - User DS
6 - TLS #1
7 - TLS #2


which moves the user cs/ds, but avoids #8.

J
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