Re: [PATCH 00/23] KVM: MMU: MMU role refactoring

[David Matlack <dmatlack@google.com>]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 06:56:55AM -0500, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> The TDP MMU has a performance regression compared to the legacy
> MMU when CR0 changes often.  This was reported for the grsecurity
> kernel, which uses CR0.WP to implement kernel W^X.  In that case,
> each change to CR0.WP unloads the MMU and causes a lot of unnecessary
> work.  When running nested, this can even cause the L1 to hardly
> make progress, as the L0 hypervisor it is overwhelmed by the amount
> of MMU work that is needed.
> 
> The root cause of the issue is that the "MMU role" in KVM is a mess
> that mixes the CPU setup (CR0/CR4/EFER, SMM, guest mode, etc.)
> and the shadow page table format.  Whenever something is different
> between the MMU and the CPU, it is stored as an extra field in struct
> kvm_mmu---and for extra bonus complication, sometimes the same thing
> is stored in both the role and an extra field.
> 
> So, this is the "no functional change intended" part of the changes
> required to fix the performance regression.  It separates neatly
> the shadow page table format ("MMU role") from the guest page table
> format ("CPU role"), and removes the duplicate fields.

What do you think about calling this the guest_role instead of cpu_role?
There is a bit of a precedent for using "guest" instead of "cpu" already
for this type of concept (e.g. guest_walker), and I find it more
intuitive.

> The next
> step then is to avoid unloading the MMU as long as the MMU role
> stays the same.
> 
> Please review!
> 
> Paolo
> 
> Paolo Bonzini (23):
>   KVM: MMU: pass uses_nx directly to reset_shadow_zero_bits_mask
>   KVM: MMU: nested EPT cannot be used in SMM
>   KVM: MMU: remove valid from extended role
>   KVM: MMU: constify uses of struct kvm_mmu_role_regs
>   KVM: MMU: pull computation of kvm_mmu_role_regs to kvm_init_mmu
>   KVM: MMU: load new PGD once nested two-dimensional paging is
>     initialized
>   KVM: MMU: remove kvm_mmu_calc_root_page_role
>   KVM: MMU: rephrase unclear comment
>   KVM: MMU: remove "bool base_only" arguments
>   KVM: MMU: split cpu_role from mmu_role
>   KVM: MMU: do not recompute root level from kvm_mmu_role_regs
>   KVM: MMU: remove ept_ad field
>   KVM: MMU: remove kvm_calc_shadow_root_page_role_common
>   KVM: MMU: cleanup computation of MMU roles for two-dimensional paging
>   KVM: MMU: cleanup computation of MMU roles for shadow paging
>   KVM: MMU: remove extended bits from mmu_role
>   KVM: MMU: remove redundant bits from extended role
>   KVM: MMU: fetch shadow EFER.NX from MMU role
>   KVM: MMU: simplify and/or inline computation of shadow MMU roles
>   KVM: MMU: pull CPU role computation to kvm_init_mmu
>   KVM: MMU: store shadow_root_level into mmu_role
>   KVM: MMU: use cpu_role for root_level
>   KVM: MMU: replace direct_map with mmu_role.direct
> 
>  arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h |  13 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/mmu.h              |   2 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c          | 408 ++++++++++++--------------------
>  arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu_audit.c    |   6 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h  |  12 +-
>  arch/86/kvm/mmu/tdp_mmu.c      |   4 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c          |   2 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c          |   2 +-
>  arch/x86/kvm/x86.c              |  12 +-
>  10 files changed, 178 insertions(+), 284 deletions(-)
> 
> -- 
> 2.31.1
>