Invalidating translation lookaside buffer entries in a virtual machine system
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) in a processor having a plurality of TLB entries, each TLB entry being associated with a virtual machine extension (VMX) tag word indicating if the associated TLB entry is invalidated according to the processor mode when an invalidation operation is performed, the processor mode being one of execution in a virtual machine (VM) and execution not in a virtual machine, the invalidation operation belonging to a non-empty set of invalidation operations composed of a union of (1) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate a variable number of TLB entries, (2) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate exactly one TLB entry, (3) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate the plurality of TLB entries, (4) a possibly empty set of operations that enable and disable use of virtual memory, and (5) a possibly empty set of operations that configure physical address size, page size or other virtual memory system behavior in a manner that changes the manner in which a physical machine interprets the TLB entries;
wherein the invalidation operations include operations (a) task switches involving changes of virtual memory related control registers, or (b) loading of control registers that modify page size extension (PSE) and physical address extension (PAE).
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Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention is a technique to invalidate entries in a translation lookaside buffer (TLB). A TLB in a processor has a plurality of TLB entries. Each TLB entry is associated with a virtual machine extension (VMX) tag word indicating if the associated TLB entry is invalidated according to a processor mode when an invalidation operation is performed. The processor mode is one of execution in a virtual machine (VM) and execution not in a virtual machine. The invalidation operation belongs to a non-empty set of invalidation operations composed of a union of (1) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate a variable number of TLB entries, (2) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate exactly one TLB entry, (3) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate the plurality of TLB entries, (4) a possibly empty set of operations that enable and disable use of virtual memory, and (5) a possibly empty set of operations that configure physical address size, page size or other virtual memory system behavior in a manner that changes the manner in which a physical machine interprets the TLB entries.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
- a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) in a processor having a plurality of TLB entries, each TLB entry being associated with a virtual machine extension (VMX) tag word indicating if the associated TLB entry is invalidated according to the processor mode when an invalidation operation is performed, the processor mode being one of execution in a virtual machine (VM) and execution not in a virtual machine, the invalidation operation belonging to a non-empty set of invalidation operations composed of a union of (1) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate a variable number of TLB entries, (2) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate exactly one TLB entry, (3) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate the plurality of TLB entries, (4) a possibly empty set of operations that enable and disable use of virtual memory, and (5) a possibly empty set of operations that configure physical address size, page size or other virtual memory system behavior in a manner that changes the manner in which a physical machine interprets the TLB entries;
wherein the invalidation operations include operations (a) task switches involving changes of virtual memory related control registers, or (b) loading of control registers that modify page size extension (PSE) and physical address extension (PAE). - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
- a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) in a processor having a plurality of TLB entries, each TLB entry being associated with a virtual machine extension (VMX) tag word indicating if the associated TLB entry is invalidated according to the processor mode when an invalidation operation is performed, the processor mode being one of execution in a virtual machine (VM) and execution not in a virtual machine, the invalidation operation belonging to a non-empty set of invalidation operations composed of a union of (1) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate a variable number of TLB entries, (2) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate exactly one TLB entry, (3) a possibly empty set of operations that invalidate the plurality of TLB entries, (4) a possibly empty set of operations that enable and disable use of virtual memory, and (5) a possibly empty set of operations that configure physical address size, page size or other virtual memory system behavior in a manner that changes the manner in which a physical machine interprets the TLB entries;
Specification