Re: [Xen-devel] [tip:x86/platform] x86/hyper-v: Use hypercall for remote TLB flush

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 11:23:10AM +0200, Vitaly Kuznetsov wrote:
> Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 07:08:22PM +0000, Jork Loeser wrote:
> >
> >> > > Subject: Re: [tip:x86/platform] x86/hyper-v: Use hypercall for remote 
> >> > > TLB flush
> >> 
> >> > > Hold on.. if we don't IPI for TLB invalidation. What serializes our
> >> > > software page table walkers like fast_gup() ?
> >> > 
> >> > Hypervisor may implement this functionality via an IPI.
> >> > 
> >> > K. Y
> >> 
> >> HvFlushVirtualAddressList() states:
> >> This call guarantees that by the time control returns back to the
> >> caller, the observable effects of all flushes on the specified virtual
> >> processors have occurred.
> >> 
> >> HvFlushVirtualAddressListEx() refers to HvFlushVirtualAddressList() as 
> >> adding sparse target VP lists.
> >> 
> >> Is this enough of a guarantee, or do you see other races?
> >
> > That's nowhere near enough. We need the remote CPU to have completed any
> > guest IF section that was in progress at the time of the call.
> >
> > So if a host IPI can interrupt a guest while the guest has IF cleared,
> > and we then process the host IPI -- clear the TLBs -- before resuming the
> > guest, which still has IF cleared, we've got a problem.
> >
> > Because at that point, our software page-table walker, that relies on IF
> > being clear to guarantee the page-tables exist, because it holds off the
> > TLB invalidate and thereby the freeing of the pages, gets its pages
> > ripped out from under it.
> 
> Oh, I see your concern. Hyper-V, however, is not the first x86
> hypervisor trying to avoid IPIs on remote TLB flush, Xen does this
> too. Briefly looking at xen_flush_tlb_others() I don't see anything
> special, do we know how serialization is achieved there?

No idea on how Xen works, I always just hope it goes away :-) But lets
ask some Xen folks.


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