Virtual Memory Layout on RISC-V Linux¶
- Author
Alexandre Ghiti <alex@ghiti.fr>
- Date
12 February 2021
This document describes the virtual memory layout used by the RISC-V Linux Kernel.
RISC-V Linux Kernel 64bit¶
The RISC-V privileged architecture document states that the 64bit addresses “must have bits 63–48 all equal to bit 47, or else a page-fault exception will occur.”: that splits the virtual address space into 2 halves separated by a very big hole, the lower half is where the userspace resides, the upper half is where the RISC-V Linux Kernel resides.
RISC-V Linux Kernel SV39¶
========================================================================================================================
Start addr | Offset | End addr | Size | VM area description
========================================================================================================================
| | | |
0000000000000000 | 0 | 0000003fffffffff | 256 GB | user-space virtual memory, different per mm
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|___________________________________________________________
| | | |
0000004000000000 | +256 GB | ffffffbfffffffff | ~16M TB | ... huge, almost 64 bits wide hole of non-canonical
| | | | virtual memory addresses up to the -256 GB
| | | | starting offset of kernel mappings.
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|___________________________________________________________
|
| Kernel-space virtual memory, shared between all processes:
____________________________________________________________|___________________________________________________________
| | | |
ffffffc000000000 | -256 GB | ffffffc7ffffffff | 32 GB | kasan
ffffffcefee00000 | -196 GB | ffffffcefeffffff | 2 MB | fixmap
ffffffceff000000 | -196 GB | ffffffceffffffff | 16 MB | PCI io
ffffffcf00000000 | -196 GB | ffffffcfffffffff | 4 GB | vmemmap
ffffffd000000000 | -192 GB | ffffffdfffffffff | 64 GB | vmalloc/ioremap space
ffffffe000000000 | -128 GB | ffffffff7fffffff | 124 GB | direct mapping of all physical memory
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|____________________________________________________________
|
|
____________________________________________________________|____________________________________________________________
| | | |
ffffffff00000000 | -4 GB | ffffffff7fffffff | 2 GB | modules, BPF
ffffffff80000000 | -2 GB | ffffffffffffffff | 2 GB | kernel
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|____________________________________________________________