1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3=========================================
4MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) control
5=========================================
6
7:Authors: - Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> - 3 Jun 1999
8          - Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@do-not-panic.com> - April 9, 2015
9
10
11Phasing out MTRR use
12====================
13
14MTRR use is replaced on modern x86 hardware with PAT. Direct MTRR use by
15drivers on Linux is now completely phased out, device drivers should use
16arch_phys_wc_add() in combination with ioremap_wc() to make MTRR effective on
17non-PAT systems while a no-op but equally effective on PAT enabled systems.
18
19Even if Linux does not use MTRRs directly, some x86 platform firmware may still
20set up MTRRs early before booting the OS. They do this as some platform
21firmware may still have implemented access to MTRRs which would be controlled
22and handled by the platform firmware directly. An example of platform use of
23MTRRs is through the use of SMI handlers, one case could be for fan control,
24the platform code would need uncachable access to some of its fan control
25registers. Such platform access does not need any Operating System MTRR code in
26place other than mtrr_type_lookup() to ensure any OS specific mapping requests
27are aligned with platform MTRR setup. If MTRRs are only set up by the platform
28firmware code though and the OS does not make any specific MTRR mapping
29requests mtrr_type_lookup() should always return MTRR_TYPE_INVALID.
30
31For details refer to Documentation/x86/pat.rst.
32
33.. tip::
34  On Intel P6 family processors (Pentium Pro, Pentium II and later)
35  the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRRs) may be used to control
36  processor access to memory ranges. This is most useful when you have
37  a video (VGA) card on a PCI or AGP bus. Enabling write-combining
38  allows bus write transfers to be combined into a larger transfer
39  before bursting over the PCI/AGP bus. This can increase performance
40  of image write operations 2.5 times or more.
41
42  The Cyrix 6x86, 6x86MX and M II processors have Address Range
43  Registers (ARRs) which provide a similar functionality to MTRRs. For
44  these, the ARRs are used to emulate the MTRRs.
45
46  The AMD K6-2 (stepping 8 and above) and K6-3 processors have two
47  MTRRs. These are supported.  The AMD Athlon family provide 8 Intel
48  style MTRRs.
49
50  The Centaur C6 (WinChip) has 8 MCRs, allowing write-combining. These
51  are supported.
52
53  The VIA Cyrix III and VIA C3 CPUs offer 8 Intel style MTRRs.
54
55  The CONFIG_MTRR option creates a /proc/mtrr file which may be used
56  to manipulate your MTRRs. Typically the X server should use
57  this. This should have a reasonably generic interface so that
58  similar control registers on other processors can be easily
59  supported.
60
61There are two interfaces to /proc/mtrr: one is an ASCII interface
62which allows you to read and write. The other is an ioctl()
63interface. The ASCII interface is meant for administration. The
64ioctl() interface is meant for C programs (i.e. the X server). The
65interfaces are described below, with sample commands and C code.
66
67
68Reading MTRRs from the shell
69============================
70::
71
72  % cat /proc/mtrr
73  reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size= 128MB: write-back, count=1
74  reg01: base=0x08000000 ( 128MB), size=  64MB: write-back, count=1
75
76Creating MTRRs from the C-shell::
77
78  # echo "base=0xf8000000 size=0x400000 type=write-combining" >! /proc/mtrr
79
80or if you use bash::
81
82  # echo "base=0xf8000000 size=0x400000 type=write-combining" >| /proc/mtrr
83
84And the result thereof::
85
86  % cat /proc/mtrr
87  reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size= 128MB: write-back, count=1
88  reg01: base=0x08000000 ( 128MB), size=  64MB: write-back, count=1
89  reg02: base=0xf8000000 (3968MB), size=   4MB: write-combining, count=1
90
91This is for video RAM at base address 0xf8000000 and size 4 megabytes. To
92find out your base address, you need to look at the output of your X
93server, which tells you where the linear framebuffer address is. A
94typical line that you may get is::
95
96  (--) S3: PCI: 968 rev 0, Linear FB @ 0xf8000000
97
98Note that you should only use the value from the X server, as it may
99move the framebuffer base address, so the only value you can trust is
100that reported by the X server.
101
102To find out the size of your framebuffer (what, you don't actually
103know?), the following line will tell you::
104
105  (--) S3: videoram:  4096k
106
107That's 4 megabytes, which is 0x400000 bytes (in hexadecimal).
108A patch is being written for XFree86 which will make this automatic:
109in other words the X server will manipulate /proc/mtrr using the
110ioctl() interface, so users won't have to do anything. If you use a
111commercial X server, lobby your vendor to add support for MTRRs.
112
113
114Creating overlapping MTRRs
115==========================
116::
117
118  %echo "base=0xfb000000 size=0x1000000 type=write-combining" >/proc/mtrr
119  %echo "base=0xfb000000 size=0x1000 type=uncachable" >/proc/mtrr
120
121And the results::
122
123  % cat /proc/mtrr
124  reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=  64MB: write-back, count=1
125  reg01: base=0xfb000000 (4016MB), size=  16MB: write-combining, count=1
126  reg02: base=0xfb000000 (4016MB), size=   4kB: uncachable, count=1
127
128Some cards (especially Voodoo Graphics boards) need this 4 kB area
129excluded from the beginning of the region because it is used for
130registers.
131
132NOTE: You can only create type=uncachable region, if the first
133region that you created is type=write-combining.
134
135
136Removing MTRRs from the C-shel
137==============================
138::
139
140  % echo "disable=2" >! /proc/mtrr
141
142or using bash::
143
144  % echo "disable=2" >| /proc/mtrr
145
146
147Reading MTRRs from a C program using ioctl()'s
148==============================================
149::
150
151  /*  mtrr-show.c
152
153      Source file for mtrr-show (example program to show MTRRs using ioctl()'s)
154
155      Copyright (C) 1997-1998  Richard Gooch
156
157      This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
158      it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
159      the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
160      (at your option) any later version.
161
162      This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
163      but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
164      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
165      GNU General Public License for more details.
166
167      You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
168      along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
169      Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
170
171      Richard Gooch may be reached by email at  rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
172      The postal address is:
173        Richard Gooch, c/o ATNF, P. O. Box 76, Epping, N.S.W., 2121, Australia.
174  */
175
176  /*
177      This program will use an ioctl() on /proc/mtrr to show the current MTRR
178      settings. This is an alternative to reading /proc/mtrr.
179
180
181      Written by      Richard Gooch   17-DEC-1997
182
183      Last updated by Richard Gooch   2-MAY-1998
184
185
186  */
187  #include <stdio.h>
188  #include <stdlib.h>
189  #include <string.h>
190  #include <sys/types.h>
191  #include <sys/stat.h>
192  #include <fcntl.h>
193  #include <sys/ioctl.h>
194  #include <errno.h>
195  #include <asm/mtrr.h>
196
197  #define TRUE 1
198  #define FALSE 0
199  #define ERRSTRING strerror (errno)
200
201  static char *mtrr_strings[MTRR_NUM_TYPES] =
202  {
203      "uncachable",               /* 0 */
204      "write-combining",          /* 1 */
205      "?",                        /* 2 */
206      "?",                        /* 3 */
207      "write-through",            /* 4 */
208      "write-protect",            /* 5 */
209      "write-back",               /* 6 */
210  };
211
212  int main ()
213  {
214      int fd;
215      struct mtrr_gentry gentry;
216
217      if ( ( fd = open ("/proc/mtrr", O_RDONLY, 0) ) == -1 )
218      {
219    if (errno == ENOENT)
220    {
221        fputs ("/proc/mtrr not found: not supported or you don't have a PPro?\n",
222        stderr);
223        exit (1);
224    }
225    fprintf (stderr, "Error opening /proc/mtrr\t%s\n", ERRSTRING);
226    exit (2);
227      }
228      for (gentry.regnum = 0; ioctl (fd, MTRRIOC_GET_ENTRY, &gentry) == 0;
229    ++gentry.regnum)
230      {
231    if (gentry.size < 1)
232    {
233        fprintf (stderr, "Register: %u disabled\n", gentry.regnum);
234        continue;
235    }
236    fprintf (stderr, "Register: %u base: 0x%lx size: 0x%lx type: %s\n",
237      gentry.regnum, gentry.base, gentry.size,
238      mtrr_strings[gentry.type]);
239      }
240      if (errno == EINVAL) exit (0);
241      fprintf (stderr, "Error doing ioctl(2) on /dev/mtrr\t%s\n", ERRSTRING);
242      exit (3);
243  }   /*  End Function main  */
244
245
246Creating MTRRs from a C programme using ioctl()'s
247=================================================
248::
249
250  /*  mtrr-add.c
251
252      Source file for mtrr-add (example programme to add an MTRRs using ioctl())
253
254      Copyright (C) 1997-1998  Richard Gooch
255
256      This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
257      it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
258      the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
259      (at your option) any later version.
260
261      This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
262      but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
263      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
264      GNU General Public License for more details.
265
266      You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
267      along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
268      Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
269
270      Richard Gooch may be reached by email at  rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
271      The postal address is:
272        Richard Gooch, c/o ATNF, P. O. Box 76, Epping, N.S.W., 2121, Australia.
273  */
274
275  /*
276      This programme will use an ioctl() on /proc/mtrr to add an entry. The first
277      available mtrr is used. This is an alternative to writing /proc/mtrr.
278
279
280      Written by      Richard Gooch   17-DEC-1997
281
282      Last updated by Richard Gooch   2-MAY-1998
283
284
285  */
286  #include <stdio.h>
287  #include <string.h>
288  #include <stdlib.h>
289  #include <unistd.h>
290  #include <sys/types.h>
291  #include <sys/stat.h>
292  #include <fcntl.h>
293  #include <sys/ioctl.h>
294  #include <errno.h>
295  #include <asm/mtrr.h>
296
297  #define TRUE 1
298  #define FALSE 0
299  #define ERRSTRING strerror (errno)
300
301  static char *mtrr_strings[MTRR_NUM_TYPES] =
302  {
303      "uncachable",               /* 0 */
304      "write-combining",          /* 1 */
305      "?",                        /* 2 */
306      "?",                        /* 3 */
307      "write-through",            /* 4 */
308      "write-protect",            /* 5 */
309      "write-back",               /* 6 */
310  };
311
312  int main (int argc, char **argv)
313  {
314      int fd;
315      struct mtrr_sentry sentry;
316
317      if (argc != 4)
318      {
319    fprintf (stderr, "Usage:\tmtrr-add base size type\n");
320    exit (1);
321      }
322      sentry.base = strtoul (argv[1], NULL, 0);
323      sentry.size = strtoul (argv[2], NULL, 0);
324      for (sentry.type = 0; sentry.type < MTRR_NUM_TYPES; ++sentry.type)
325      {
326    if (strcmp (argv[3], mtrr_strings[sentry.type]) == 0) break;
327      }
328      if (sentry.type >= MTRR_NUM_TYPES)
329      {
330    fprintf (stderr, "Illegal type: \"%s\"\n", argv[3]);
331    exit (2);
332      }
333      if ( ( fd = open ("/proc/mtrr", O_WRONLY, 0) ) == -1 )
334      {
335    if (errno == ENOENT)
336    {
337        fputs ("/proc/mtrr not found: not supported or you don't have a PPro?\n",
338        stderr);
339        exit (3);
340    }
341    fprintf (stderr, "Error opening /proc/mtrr\t%s\n", ERRSTRING);
342    exit (4);
343      }
344      if (ioctl (fd, MTRRIOC_ADD_ENTRY, &sentry) == -1)
345      {
346    fprintf (stderr, "Error doing ioctl(2) on /dev/mtrr\t%s\n", ERRSTRING);
347    exit (5);
348      }
349      fprintf (stderr, "Sleeping for 5 seconds so you can see the new entry\n");
350      sleep (5);
351      close (fd);
352      fputs ("I've just closed /proc/mtrr so now the new entry should be gone\n",
353      stderr);
354  }   /*  End Function main  */
355