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From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
To: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	 Paul Durrant <paul@xen.org>, David Woodhouse <dwmw@amazon.co.uk>,
	Dongli Zhang <dongli.zhang@oracle.com>
Subject: [PATCH v9 07/21] KVM: x86: Drop unnecessary CPU pinning when computing/getting kvmclock
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 15:54:45 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260810225500.869288-8-seanjc@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260810225500.869288-1-seanjc@google.com>

When computing the current kvmclock value, don't pin the task to the
current CPU for the entire duration of the master clock path, as the
CPU pinning was never about ensuring rdtsc() and cpu_tsc_khz would
agree.  As pointed out by David, ka->use_master_clock can only be true
when the host clocksource is TSC based, which in turn requires a stable,
constant and synchronised TSC across all CPUs.

The CPU pinning was added in commit e2c2206a1899 ("KVM: x86: Fix potential
preemption when get the current kvmclock timestamp") purely in response to
a CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT=y bug due to accessing a per-CPU variable with
preemption enabled.  Despite what the comment would suggest, including
rdtsc() in the {get,put}_cpu() section was opportunistic.  In fact, Paolo
even said exactly that when suggesting that KVM guarantee the rdtsc() would
execute on the same CPU[*]:

 : Also, rdtsc() should really be on the same CPU as __this_cpu_read.  We
 : know it's not really really necessary because the master clock is
 : active, but since we need a get_cpu/put_cpu pair, better be clean.

Nothing has changed in the last ~9 years, i.e. the rdtsc() still *should*
be on the same CPU, but super strictly speaking, all will be fine if the
task is migrated between grabbing the frequency and doing rdtsc().
Dropping the CPU pinning will allow dropping the rdtsc() entirely without
having to resort to a large "rewrite get_kvmclock()" patch.

Opportunistically add a comment to explain why KVM needs to snapshot the
frequency, because that _is_ a hard requirement to avoid reintroducing the
bug fixed by commit e70b57a6ce4e ("KVM: X86: Fix softlockup when get the
current kvmclock")

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/ae8de642-8f14-a70a-1fab-57e2c4093cd5@redhat.com [*]
Suggested-by: David Woodhouse <dwmw@amazon.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
---
 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c | 15 +++++++++------
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
index 93b49be0d887..56e095b14441 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
@@ -1655,13 +1655,18 @@ static void __get_kvmclock(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_clock_data *data)
 {
 	struct kvm_arch *ka = &kvm->arch;
 	struct pvclock_vcpu_time_info hv_clock;
+	u64 tsc_hz;
 
-	/* both __this_cpu_read() and rdtsc() should be on the same cpu */
+	/*
+	 * Snapshot and validate the TSC frequency as kvmclock_cpu_down_prep()
+	 * zeros the per-CPU value when a CPU is going offline.
+	 */
 	get_cpu();
+	tsc_hz = (u64)get_cpu_tsc_khz() * HZ_PER_KHZ;
+	put_cpu();
 
 	data->flags = 0;
-	if (ka->use_master_clock &&
-	    (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_CONSTANT_TSC) || __this_cpu_read(cpu_tsc_khz))) {
+	if (ka->use_master_clock && tsc_hz) {
 #ifdef CONFIG_X86_64
 		struct timespec64 ts;
 
@@ -1675,15 +1680,13 @@ static void __get_kvmclock(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_clock_data *data)
 		data->flags |= KVM_CLOCK_TSC_STABLE;
 		hv_clock.tsc_timestamp = ka->master_cycle_now;
 		hv_clock.system_time = ka->master_kernel_ns + ka->kvmclock_offset;
-		kvm_get_time_scale(NSEC_PER_SEC, get_cpu_tsc_khz() * 1000LL,
+		kvm_get_time_scale(NSEC_PER_SEC,  tsc_hz,
 				   &hv_clock.tsc_shift,
 				   &hv_clock.tsc_to_system_mul);
 		data->clock = __pvclock_read_cycles(&hv_clock, data->host_tsc);
 	} else {
 		data->clock = get_kvmclock_base_ns() + ka->kvmclock_offset;
 	}
-
-	put_cpu();
 }
 
 static void get_kvmclock(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_clock_data *data)
-- 
2.55.0.679.g6767b8d81c-goog


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-08-10 22:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-08-10 22:54 [PATCH v9 00/21] KVM: x86: Cleaning up the KVM clock mess, part 1 Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 01/21] KVM: x86: Update "last guest TSC" snapshot prior to enabling IRQs/preemption Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 02/21] KVM: x86: Improve accuracy of KVM clock when TSC scaling is in force Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 03/21] KVM: x86: Explicitly disable TSC scaling without CONSTANT_TSC Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 04/21] KVM: x86: Activate master clock immediately on vCPU creation Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 05/21] KVM: x86: Compute kvmclock base without pvclock_gtod_data Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 06/21] KVM: x86: Avoid NTP frequency skew for KVM clock on 32-bit host Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` Sean Christopherson [this message]
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 08/21] KVM: x86: Move "no master clock" fallback from __get_kvmclock() to get_kvmclock() Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 09/21] KVM: x86: Wrap all of __get_kvmclock_master_clock() with CONFIG_X86_64=y Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 10/21] KVM: x86: Fall back to non-master-clock if clockread fails in get_kvmclock() Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 11/21] KVM: x86: Fix KVM clock precision in get_kvmclock() with TSC scaling Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 12/21] KVM: x86: Use get_kvmclock() in kvm_get_wall_clock_epoch() Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 13/21] KVM: x86: Fix compute_guest_tsc() to handle negative time deltas Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 14/21] KVM: x86: Disable preemption, not IRQs, when getting TSC+freq pair Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 15/21] KVM: x86: Make master clock logic in guest PV clock updates 64-bit only Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 16/21] KVM: x86: Upscale TSC to "now", not master clock when updating PV clocks Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 17/21] KVM: x86: Simplify and comment kvm_get_time_scale() Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 18/21] KVM: x86: Remove implicit rdtsc() from kvm_compute_l1_tsc_offset() Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 19/21] KVM: x86: Use kernel timekeeping snapshots for getting kvmclock time since boot Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 20/21] KVM: x86: Use kernel timekeeping snapshot for monotonic clock Sean Christopherson
2026-08-10 22:54 ` [PATCH v9 21/21] KVM: x86: Use kernel timekeeping snapshot to get walltime+TSC Sean Christopherson
2026-08-11 13:58 ` [PATCH v9 00/21] KVM: x86: Cleaning up the KVM clock mess, part 1 Woodhouse, David

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