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<concept id="GUID-817E0561-6165-5BB1-97F9-AD53CFCDAA56" xml:lang="en"><title>Impact

of Data Paging on Kernel-side Code Guide</title><shortdesc>Describes the kernel-side issues that must be considered when writing

device drivers.</shortdesc><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>

<section id="GUID-C02ED166-914C-4397-9701-3DFA12BB035F"><title>Purpose</title> <p>This document explains the impact of data

paging on kernel side code. </p> <p><b>Intended

Audience:</b> </p> <p>This document is intended for device driver writers. </p> </section>

<section id="GUID-8B038641-159E-4029-AEA7-952B9F598616"><title>Access to user memory</title> <p>New restrictions on access

to user memory. </p> </section>

<section id="GUID-EDAC178D-6B98-4BC2-B9F5-0EB0846702F5"><title>Access to current thread's address space</title> <p>Certain

exported and internal APIs access the address space of the current thread

and are subject to restrictions on their use enforced by assertions in the

code. The restrictions are these: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-BDB0D784-562F-5AE6-A291-A738682C2A53"><p>The APIs may only be

called from thread context. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-37A31C92-C9C7-539F-86B5-066A09D2F53B"><p>They may not be called

while any mutexes are held. There are two particularly important cases when

mutexes are often held: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-D8F89EF4-854C-5096-9E52-FA7989C423D3"><p>When publish and subscribe

is writing large binary properties to user space, and </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-9E7C39C8-D1DF-53B4-9596-5E7E6CB1C906"><p>When the multiple memory

model writes code segments' export directories to user space. </p> </li>

</ul> </li>

</ul> </li>

<li id="GUID-E900614E-D99F-5401-B570-A792300D0E6A"><p>The APIs may not be

called when the system lock is held. There are two particularly important

cases when the system lock is often held: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-41D35D8E-1ABC-54A4-9985-F551ACAD4F28"><p>When publish and subscribe

is writing large binary properties to user space, and </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-06705F28-00F9-5BBE-A3EF-FC79E4849908"><p>When the multiple memory

model uses <xref href="GUID-38D1534C-AA01-33AF-9937-CDD818A85F97.dita#GUID-38D1534C-AA01-33AF-9937-CDD818A85F97/GUID-99ECF4EB-8BCD-3968-BDED-E37E41753BEF"><apiname>DThread::FastWrite</apiname></xref> to write to user space. </p> </li>

</ul> </li>

</ul> <p>The APIs concerned are these: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-1C237BE6-900B-5F88-B081-140030E42894"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-C154A151-0DF7-345D-9A10-E9B1CF3400D9"><apiname>Kern::KUDesInfo</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-EC004C04-A5D0-5A52-90BA-56A0DE140A8A"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-B79007D0-FF1F-30E7-986D-7CEBC5E45102"><apiname>Kern::KUDesGet</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-D5D3D6C4-BB4B-55B1-99B9-000F716C2964"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-CDEA7B22-9520-3DB1-AA04-1289C2287936"><apiname>Kern::KUDesPut</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-1C330912-EAAC-5020-94F8-89AD09387E42"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-94F2DF65-87A5-32C6-9695-9557E5832ACF"><apiname>Kern::KUDesSetLength</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-C59D5CDD-06B4-5931-BE86-E3F5727B456D"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-FAFAA120-AA28-32FD-9202-1534C3148026"><apiname>Kern::InfoCopy</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-A93205E5-2BBF-568A-84C1-FA95BA8A5EBC"><p> <xref href="GUID-F5136CAF-B66F-388D-A610-D0153CAF7E23.dita"><apiname>umemget()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-B56A34CD-E5B5-3E3E-A2EE-3BC9D248B210.dita"><apiname>kumemget()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-B55573FC-B21C-384A-8B1E-A6A4301310E9.dita"><apiname>umemget32()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-15B62FF1-5D59-3A84-9648-EB0DBFE17232.dita"><apiname>kumemget32()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-C4FCA083-9C65-5F24-B65C-0C8B62A9E89E"><p> <xref href="GUID-371860F0-36BF-340D-BEF6-1763EF9874AE.dita"><apiname>umemput()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-C7AB0391-99D5-31A2-91D4-A7F195546FC3.dita"><apiname>kumemput()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-B2DF3520-01CE-3D2C-8137-746ADBCBAE80.dita"><apiname>umemput32()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-D141C3C4-F2F6-37DF-BDF6-63DDE9052FA0.dita"><apiname>kumemput32()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-93854B1F-3593-56FA-992B-D9965958FC17"><p> <xref href="GUID-16048974-7407-3778-9BD3-B8417E3F795A.dita"><apiname>umemset()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-B51F91FF-E5CD-3D5F-8BB3-B18E58761B62.dita"><apiname>kumemset()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-2099129C-21A4-504F-BD33-9B1F3C84ECCE"><p> <xref href="GUID-A9CDD270-DDEB-3E58-9A31-2567985958DB.dita"><apiname>SafeRead()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-FE09CB97-F853-3939-ADB1-2FBE4EDF50CE.dita"><apiname>KUSafeRead()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-24C2001F-2759-566C-B7C1-7CA677123C6F"><p> <xref href="GUID-97393047-A896-3F93-90CE-9C30BF19AF10.dita"><apiname>SafeWrite()</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-145B354F-1F60-3A1B-8FA3-E873C6D133A5.dita"><apiname>KUSafeWrite()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-85EE234D-34BA-542B-B43F-E178DECA1CFD"><p> <xref href="GUID-7463E352-F6CE-3749-902A-0F3D9C699ADF.dita"><apiname>KUSafeInc()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-26D29EEE-7FC6-556B-BCC0-27F0011B926A"><p> <xref href="GUID-7C924E07-84AD-36AC-A6D0-09C47A170FFC.dita"><apiname>KUSafeDec()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

</ul> </section>

<section id="GUID-6487F5DB-DB07-458C-A97D-9D26BBC35E0A"><title>Access to another thread's address space</title> <p>Certain

exported and internal APIs access the address space of another thread and

are subject to restrictions on their use enforced by assertions in the code.

The restrictions are these: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-38E41386-9179-500D-92BB-043042E3C957"><p>The APIs may not be

called when any mutexes are held. One particularly important case of this

is when undertakers are completed and handles written to user space. </p> </li>

</ul> <p>The APIs concerned are these: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-76DF8E52-6330-5549-A10F-810FFC1236BC"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-904A42A8-8077-3FC6-BEF2-29619F079842"><apiname>Kern::ThreadRawRead()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-DFD8AEC8-172E-582E-9AC2-742F3C538B16"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-182C88F4-326C-376E-9FBE-889E3CB9B68A"><apiname>Kern::ThreadRawWrite()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-A4826184-4CDD-5339-9971-AE1894B3678E"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-C505206F-F54F-3760-BA7D-2DB52AB4E0B3"><apiname>Kern::ThreadDesRead()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-73B032E1-8733-5E59-8028-812179CE2A81"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-FA321582-6D75-37A1-8DAB-D50638F76593"><apiname>Kern::ThreadDesWrite()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-FD22484A-2418-5A1D-A68A-27090623085D"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-1DE210A5-B7A2-3F52-9003-439CA3DD4715"><apiname>Kern::ThreadGetDesLength()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-CA931109-D50C-580A-9A0B-770355FA24C0"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-A5E20DB7-9DB4-350C-B636-95E2148DCC6F"><apiname>Kern::ThreadGetDesMaxLength()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-AE500BC7-A230-5EE5-BA7F-643A47DEEFB9"><p> <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-22DD7D90-B4B5-3450-82BF-C3CC3A43430A"><apiname>Kern::ThreadGetDesInfo()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-D2287795-C6BA-5746-87B5-E2260A1389AB"><p> <xref href="GUID-38D1534C-AA01-33AF-9937-CDD818A85F97.dita#GUID-38D1534C-AA01-33AF-9937-CDD818A85F97/GUID-876D7459-E09E-33B7-A35D-48A96F9E78C8"><apiname>DThread::FastWrite()</apiname></xref>  </p> </li>

</ul> </section>

<section id="GUID-CF741107-AEC0-4CAD-9F59-BD4EC8C7BA26"><title>Client request completion</title> <p>In non-paged code it

is usual for a thread to have an asynchronous request outstanding and to complete

it by calling <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-D720BB4C-5E31-3213-BB16-859AA325FE98"><apiname>Kern::RequestComplete()</apiname></xref>. This technique is

not safe in data paged code as it involves writing a status value back into

the thread's address space, but this memory might be paged out and violate

the thread's performance guarantees or cause a mutex order violation. </p> <p>Instead,

you should use the <xref href="GUID-4CB67E92-6092-316B-BBDC-B428F4242A76.dita"><apiname>TClientRequest</apiname></xref> object to write the request

status within the context of the client thread in the following way. </p> <ol id="GUID-2379DB5B-9E06-56D4-A561-C55E77A5A570">

<li id="GUID-A74F8DB4-154B-5CC3-980E-6A248819BB08"><p>Create a <xref href="GUID-4CB67E92-6092-316B-BBDC-B428F4242A76.dita"><apiname>TClientRequest</apiname></xref> object

by calling <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-C526F279-6BCF-3373-A869-37DB22695809"><apiname>Kern::CreateClientRequest()</apiname></xref>. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-1B09ED45-55C2-5A57-8921-FD8FFE10819F"><p>Call the <xref href="GUID-E0687C90-7742-3C5C-96EF-187415584E31.dita"><apiname>SetStatus()</apiname></xref> function

of the <xref href="GUID-4CB67E92-6092-316B-BBDC-B428F4242A76.dita"><apiname>TClientRequest</apiname></xref> object to set the client's request

status. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-5A047136-5848-5F43-A88A-E0BF9625BFEE"><p>Call <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-DE0CF5BD-B166-3C5B-9E27-F95710322F21"><apiname>Kern::QueueRequestComplete()</apiname></xref> to

signal the client thread that the request has been queued for completion. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-F481D0FF-6A8F-5462-97C9-DCA9EABB1E25"><p>When the client thread

next runs, the <xref href="GUID-E0B34F3E-D4C4-3232-B8B1-7DB35B454646.dita"><apiname>TRequestStatus</apiname></xref> value is written back to

it. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-A37194A0-599A-584E-BD38-333B0E5DFD70"><p>The <xref href="GUID-E0B34F3E-D4C4-3232-B8B1-7DB35B454646.dita"><apiname>TRequestStatus</apiname></xref> can

now be reused, or destroyed by a call to <xref href="GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D.dita#GUID-C6946ECB-775F-3EC2-A56F-78F25B9FBE3D/GUID-A67030E5-B84C-3CFF-B0B9-68F2F0E488A6"><apiname>Kern::DestroyRequest()</apiname></xref>. </p> </li>

</ol> </section>

<section id="GUID-4E440670-4ED5-4BA8-81A2-3A260EDDDFD1"><title>IPC message delivery</title> <p>In non-paged code it is common

for a client thread to send a message to a server and write it into the address

space of the server. When data paging is enabled, this creates the same risk

of page faults as the completion of asynchronous requests and can be mitigated

by the same techniques as above. In addition, descriptor information (type,

length and maximum length) is read by temporarily switching to the client's

address space, creating additional risk of page faults. </p> <p>When data

paging is enabled, messages to servers must be pre-parsed and their type,

length and maximum length stored in the message structure. This involves change

to the kernel code but does not impact on user-side code. </p> </section>

<section id="GUID-2727EA5C-0820-4DA4-BEC8-E6E830919A63"><title>Kernel event queue</title> <p>The kernel maintains a queue

of user-input events which is read by the window server. The introduction

of data paging involved a change to the kernel code which responds to the

user-side API <xref href="GUID-8BB2609C-5F76-3B47-AA9E-1453F8F2AD55.dita#GUID-8BB2609C-5F76-3B47-AA9E-1453F8F2AD55/GUID-D3526836-5EB4-3EBC-87FF-B0DD2E74CAF3"><apiname>UserSver::RequestEvent()</apiname></xref>. No change to user-side

code is involved. </p> </section>

</conbody><related-links>

<link href="GUID-E21E7992-607A-5A49-B022-189ECA9E76D1.dita"><linktext>Code Paging

Overview</linktext></link>

<link href="GUID-BDB847A2-557A-5902-AA6D-C1AE10D8E493.dita"><linktext>Code Paging

Guide</linktext></link>

<link href="GUID-B35A70D2-1BC8-51DE-95BF-F315DB394582.dita"><linktext>Demand Paging

Overview</linktext></link>

</related-links></concept>