Re: unused pte bits (i386 no PSE)

[Ed L Cashin <ecashin@uga.edu>]

"Kirk True" <ktrue@movaris.com> writes:

> Hi Ed,
>
>> I sure could use a bit.  Can anyone confirm or deny that those bits
>> really are unused?
>
> This is probably a bad idea, but couldn't you "poison" those bits like the
> slab debugger does and see if anything changes them?

Well, there are only three bits, so any magic number isn't going to be
very improbable ...

I guess I could do something silly like scanning the page tables to
make sure that the bits don't change every X timer interrupts or
something, but that seems like a waste of time, since I'd think it
would be common knowledge if these bits were being used.  

-- 
--Ed L Cashin            |   PGP public key:
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