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Diffstat (limited to 'kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt | 168 |
1 files changed, 168 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt b/kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d68af4dc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt @@ -0,0 +1,168 @@ +KVM Lock Overview +================= + +1. Acquisition Orders +--------------------- + +(to be written) + +2: Exception +------------ + +Fast page fault: + +Fast page fault is the fast path which fixes the guest page fault out of +the mmu-lock on x86. Currently, the page fault can be fast only if the +shadow page table is present and it is caused by write-protect, that means +we just need change the W bit of the spte. + +What we use to avoid all the race is the SPTE_HOST_WRITEABLE bit and +SPTE_MMU_WRITEABLE bit on the spte: +- SPTE_HOST_WRITEABLE means the gfn is writable on host. +- SPTE_MMU_WRITEABLE means the gfn is writable on mmu. The bit is set when + the gfn is writable on guest mmu and it is not write-protected by shadow + page write-protection. + +On fast page fault path, we will use cmpxchg to atomically set the spte W +bit if spte.SPTE_HOST_WRITEABLE = 1 and spte.SPTE_WRITE_PROTECT = 1, this +is safe because whenever changing these bits can be detected by cmpxchg. + +But we need carefully check these cases: +1): The mapping from gfn to pfn +The mapping from gfn to pfn may be changed since we can only ensure the pfn +is not changed during cmpxchg. This is a ABA problem, for example, below case +will happen: + +At the beginning: +gpte = gfn1 +gfn1 is mapped to pfn1 on host +spte is the shadow page table entry corresponding with gpte and +spte = pfn1 + + VCPU 0 VCPU0 +on fast page fault path: + + old_spte = *spte; + pfn1 is swapped out: + spte = 0; + + pfn1 is re-alloced for gfn2. + + gpte is changed to point to + gfn2 by the guest: + spte = pfn1; + + if (cmpxchg(spte, old_spte, old_spte+W) + mark_page_dirty(vcpu->kvm, gfn1) + OOPS!!! + +We dirty-log for gfn1, that means gfn2 is lost in dirty-bitmap. + +For direct sp, we can easily avoid it since the spte of direct sp is fixed +to gfn. For indirect sp, before we do cmpxchg, we call gfn_to_pfn_atomic() +to pin gfn to pfn, because after gfn_to_pfn_atomic(): +- We have held the refcount of pfn that means the pfn can not be freed and + be reused for another gfn. +- The pfn is writable that means it can not be shared between different gfns + by KSM. + +Then, we can ensure the dirty bitmaps is correctly set for a gfn. + +Currently, to simplify the whole things, we disable fast page fault for +indirect shadow page. + +2): Dirty bit tracking +In the origin code, the spte can be fast updated (non-atomically) if the +spte is read-only and the Accessed bit has already been set since the +Accessed bit and Dirty bit can not be lost. + +But it is not true after fast page fault since the spte can be marked +writable between reading spte and updating spte. Like below case: + +At the beginning: +spte.W = 0 +spte.Accessed = 1 + + VCPU 0 VCPU0 +In mmu_spte_clear_track_bits(): + + old_spte = *spte; + + /* 'if' condition is satisfied. */ + if (old_spte.Accssed == 1 && + old_spte.W == 0) + spte = 0ull; + on fast page fault path: + spte.W = 1 + memory write on the spte: + spte.Dirty = 1 + + + else + old_spte = xchg(spte, 0ull) + + + if (old_spte.Accssed == 1) + kvm_set_pfn_accessed(spte.pfn); + if (old_spte.Dirty == 1) + kvm_set_pfn_dirty(spte.pfn); + OOPS!!! + +The Dirty bit is lost in this case. + +In order to avoid this kind of issue, we always treat the spte as "volatile" +if it can be updated out of mmu-lock, see spte_has_volatile_bits(), it means, +the spte is always atomically updated in this case. + +3): flush tlbs due to spte updated +If the spte is updated from writable to readonly, we should flush all TLBs, +otherwise rmap_write_protect will find a read-only spte, even though the +writable spte might be cached on a CPU's TLB. + +As mentioned before, the spte can be updated to writable out of mmu-lock on +fast page fault path, in order to easily audit the path, we see if TLBs need +be flushed caused by this reason in mmu_spte_update() since this is a common +function to update spte (present -> present). + +Since the spte is "volatile" if it can be updated out of mmu-lock, we always +atomically update the spte, the race caused by fast page fault can be avoided, +See the comments in spte_has_volatile_bits() and mmu_spte_update(). + +3. Reference +------------ + +Name: kvm_lock +Type: spinlock_t +Arch: any +Protects: - vm_list + +Name: kvm_count_lock +Type: raw_spinlock_t +Arch: any +Protects: - hardware virtualization enable/disable +Comment: 'raw' because hardware enabling/disabling must be atomic /wrt + migration. + +Name: kvm_arch::tsc_write_lock +Type: raw_spinlock +Arch: x86 +Protects: - kvm_arch::{last_tsc_write,last_tsc_nsec,last_tsc_offset} + - tsc offset in vmcb +Comment: 'raw' because updating the tsc offsets must not be preempted. + +Name: kvm->mmu_lock +Type: spinlock_t +Arch: any +Protects: -shadow page/shadow tlb entry +Comment: it is a spinlock since it is used in mmu notifier. + +Name: kvm->srcu +Type: srcu lock +Arch: any +Protects: - kvm->memslots + - kvm->buses +Comment: The srcu read lock must be held while accessing memslots (e.g. + when using gfn_to_* functions) and while accessing in-kernel + MMIO/PIO address->device structure mapping (kvm->buses). + The srcu index can be stored in kvm_vcpu->srcu_idx per vcpu + if it is needed by multiple functions. |