No description
08cec03f8e
As per the x86 architecture specification, matching TLB entries need to be invalidated on a page fault. For instance, after a page fault due to inadequate protection bits on a TLB hit, the TLB entry needs to be invalidated. This behavior is clearly specified in the x86 architecture manuals from both AMD and Intel. This invalidation is missing currently in gem5, due to which linux kernel versions 3.8 and up cannot be simulated efficiently. This is exposed by a linux optimisation in commit e4a1cc56e4d728eb87072c71c07581524e5160b1, which removes a tlb flush on updating page table entries in x86. Testing: Linux kernel versions 3.8 onwards were booting very slowly in FS mode, due to repeated page faults (~300000 before the first print statement in a bash file). Ensured that page fault rate drops drastically and observed reduction in boot time from order of hours to minutes for linux kernel v3.8 and v3.11 |
||
|---|---|---|
| build_opts | ||
| configs | ||
| ext | ||
| src | ||
| system | ||
| tests | ||
| util | ||
| .hgignore | ||
| .hgtags | ||
| COPYING | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| README | ||
| SConstruct | ||
This is the gem5 simulator. The main website can be found at http://www.gem5.org A good starting point is http://www.gem5.org/Introduction, and for more information about building the simulator and getting started please see http://www.gem5.org/Documentation and http://www.gem5.org/Tutorials. To build gem5, you will need the following software: g++ or clang, Python (gem5 links in the Python interpreter), SCons, SWIG, zlib, m4, and lastly protobuf if you want trace capture and playback support. Please see http://www.gem5.org/Dependencies for more details concerning the minimum versions of the aforementioned tools. Once you have all dependencies resolved, type 'scons build/<ARCH>/gem5.opt' where ARCH is one of ALPHA, ARM, NULL, MIPS, POWER, SPARC, or X86. This will build an optimized version of the gem5 binary (gem5.opt) for the the specified architecture. See http://www.gem5.org/Build_System for more details and options. With the simulator built, have a look at http://www.gem5.org/Running_gem5 for more information on how to use gem5. The basic source release includes these subdirectories: - configs: example simulation configuration scripts - ext: less-common external packages needed to build gem5 - src: source code of the gem5 simulator - system: source for some optional system software for simulated systems - tests: regression tests - util: useful utility programs and files To run full-system simulations, you will need compiled system firmware (console and PALcode for Alpha), kernel binaries and one or more disk images. Please see the gem5 download page for these items at http://www.gem5.org/Download If you have questions, please send mail to gem5-users@gem5.org Enjoy using gem5 and please share your modifications and extensions.