Re: [PATCH 2/2] KVM: Protect vCPU's "last run PID" with rwlock, not RCU

[Oliver Upton <oliver.upton@linux.dev>]

On Fri, Aug 02, 2024 at 01:01:36PM -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> To avoid jitter on KVM_RUN due to synchronize_rcu(), use a rwlock instead
> of RCU to protect vcpu->pid, a.k.a. the pid of the task last used to a
> vCPU.  When userspace is doing M:N scheduling of tasks to vCPUs, e.g. to
> run SEV migration helper vCPUs during post-copy, the synchronize_rcu()
> needed to change the PID associated with the vCPU can stall for hundreds
> of milliseconds, which is problematic for latency sensitive post-copy
> operations.
> 
> In the directed yield path, do not acquire the lock if it's contended,
> i.e. if the associated PID is changing, as that means the vCPU's task is
> already running.
> 
> Reported-by: Steve Rutherford <srutherford@google.com>
> Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
> ---
>  arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h |  2 +-
>  include/linux/kvm_host.h          |  3 ++-
>  virt/kvm/kvm_main.c               | 32 +++++++++++++++++--------------
>  3 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> index a33f5996ca9f..7199cb014806 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> @@ -1115,7 +1115,7 @@ int __kvm_arm_vcpu_set_events(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu,
>  void kvm_arm_halt_guest(struct kvm *kvm);
>  void kvm_arm_resume_guest(struct kvm *kvm);
>  
> -#define vcpu_has_run_once(vcpu)	!!rcu_access_pointer((vcpu)->pid)
> +#define vcpu_has_run_once(vcpu)	(!!READ_ONCE((vcpu)->pid))
>  
>  #ifndef __KVM_NVHE_HYPERVISOR__
>  #define kvm_call_hyp_nvhe(f, ...)						\
> diff --git a/include/linux/kvm_host.h b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
> index 689e8be873a7..d6f4e8b2b44c 100644
> --- a/include/linux/kvm_host.h
> +++ b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
> @@ -342,7 +342,8 @@ struct kvm_vcpu {
>  #ifndef __KVM_HAVE_ARCH_WQP
>  	struct rcuwait wait;
>  #endif
> -	struct pid __rcu *pid;
> +	struct pid *pid;
> +	rwlock_t pid_lock;
>  	int sigset_active;
>  	sigset_t sigset;
>  	unsigned int halt_poll_ns;

Adding yet another lock is never exciting, but this looks fine. Can you
nest this lock inside of the vcpu->mutex acquisition in
kvm_vm_ioctl_create_vcpu() so lockdep gets the picture?


> @@ -4466,7 +4469,7 @@ static long kvm_vcpu_ioctl(struct file *filp,
>  		r = -EINVAL;
>  		if (arg)
>  			goto out;
> -		oldpid = rcu_access_pointer(vcpu->pid);
> +		oldpid = vcpu->pid;

It'd be good to add a comment here about how this is guarded by the
vcpu->mutex, as Steve points out.

-- 
Thanks,
Oliver