Intel & AMD IOMMU Improvements Slated For Linux 4.16

With the in-development Linux 4.16 kernel there are improvements to note for both AMD and Intel users.

On the Intel IOMMU side there is now support for 5-level page-tables. Back during the Linux 4.14 kernel cycle was the initial 5-level page table support for raising the physical and virtual address space limits of future Intel Linux systems. The limits went from 256 TiB for virtual address space and 64 TiB for physical address space to 128 PiB and 4 PiB, respectively.

With Linux 4.16, the IOMMU now accommodates 5-level page-tables. More details on the IOMMU/VT-d changes for 5-level page-tables can be found from this patch letter.

On the AMD side there is improved error reporting for the AMD IOMMU driver. In particular, when an unknown type event occurs, more information will be provided to gain greater insight about the issue.

There are also various other small changes as outlined by this pull request.