Re: [PATCH 02/21] drm/i915/gtt: Workaround for HW preload not flushing pdps

Michel Thierry
2015-08-13T09:54:20Z

On 8/13/2015 5:36 PM, Zhiyuan Lv wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 04:09:18PM +0100, Dave Gordon wrote:
>> On 12/08/15 08:56, Thierry, Michel wrote:
>>> On 8/11/2015 1:05 PM, Zhiyuan Lv wrote:
>>>> Hi Mika/Dave/Michel,
>>>>
>>>> I saw the patch of using LRI for root pointer update has been merged to
>>>> drm-intel. When we consider i915 driver to run inside a virtual machine, e.g.
>>>> with XenGT, we may still need Mika's this patch like below:
>>>>
>>>> "
>>>> if (intel_vgpu_active(ppgtt->base.dev))
>>>> gen8_preallocate_top_level_pdps(ppgtt);
>>>> "
>>>>
>>>> Could you share with us your opinion? Thanks in advance!
>>>
>>> Hi Zhiyuan,
>>>
>>> The change looks ok to me. If you need to preallocate the PDPs,
>>> gen8_ppgtt_init is the right place to do it. Only add a similar
>>> vgpu_active check to disable the LRI updates (in gen8_emit_bb_start).
>>>
>>>> The reason behind is that LRI command will make shadow PPGTT implementation
>>>> hard. In XenGT, we construct shadow page table for each PPGTT in guest i915
>>>> driver, and then track every guest page table change in order to update shadow
>>>> page table accordingly. The problem of page table updates with GPU command is
>>>> that they cannot be trapped by hypervisor to finish the shadow page table
>>>> update work. In XenGT, the only change we have is the command scan in context
>>>> submission. But that is not exactly the right time to do shadow page table
>>>> update.
>>>>
>>>> Mika's patch can address the problem nicely. With the preallocation, the root
>>>> pointers in EXECLIST context will always keep the same. Then we can treat any
>>>> attempt to change guest PPGTT with GPU commands as malicious behavior. Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> -Zhiyuan
>>
>> The bad thing that was happening if we didn't use LRIs was that the
>> CPU would try to push the new mappings to the GPU by updating PDP
>> registers in the saved context image. This is unsafe if the context
>> is running, as switching away from it would result in the
>> CPU-updated values being overwritten by the older values in the GPU
>> h/w registers (if the context were known to be idle, then it would
>> be safe).
>
> Thank you very much for the detailed explanation! And I am curious
> that if the root pointers update does not have side effect to the
> current running context, for instance, only changing NULL to PD
> without modifying existing pdpes, can we use "Force PD Restore" bit in
> ctx descriptor?

We've been explicitly asked to not use "Force PD Restore".

>
> Regards,
> -Zhiyuan
>
>>
>> Preallocating the top-level PDPs should mean that the values need
>> never change, so there's then no need to update the context image,
>> thus avoiding the write hazard :)
>>
>> .Dave.
>>
>>>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 04:57:42PM +0300, Mika Kuoppala wrote:
>>>>> Dave Gordon <david.s.gordon@intel.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 10/06/15 12:42, Michel Thierry wrote:
>>>>>>> On 5/29/2015 1:53 PM, Michel Thierry wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 5/29/2015 12:05 PM, Michel Thierry wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 5/22/2015 6:04 PM, Mika Kuoppala wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> With BDW/SKL and 32bit addressing mode only, the hardware preloads
>>>>>>>>>> pdps. However the TLB invalidation only has effect on levels below
>>>>>>>>>> the pdps. This means that if pdps change, hw might access with
>>>>>>>>>> stale pdp entry.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> To combat this problem, preallocate the top pdps so that hw sees
>>>>>>>>>> them as immutable for each context.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Cc: Ville Syrjälä <ville.syrjala@linux.intel.com>
>>>>>>>>>> Cc: Rafael Barbalho <rafael.barbalho@intel.com>
>>>>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Mika Kuoppala <mika.kuoppala@intel.com>
>>>>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>>>>> drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c | 50
>>>>>>>>>> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>>>>>>> drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_reg.h | 17 +++++++++++++
>>>>>>>>>> drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_lrc.c | 15 +----------
>>>>>>>>>> 3 files changed, 68 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c
>>>>>>>>>> b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c
>>>>>>>>>> index 0ffd459..1a5ad4c 100644
>>>>>>>>>> --- a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c
>>>>>>>>>> +++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem_gtt.c
>>>>>>>>>> @@ -941,6 +941,48 @@ err_out:
>>>>>>>>>> return ret;
>>>>>>>>>> }
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> +/* With some architectures and 32bit legacy mode, hardware pre-loads
>>>>>>>>>> + * the top level pdps but the tlb invalidation only invalidates the
>>>>>>>>>> + * lower levels.
>>>>>>>>>> + * This might lead to hw fetching with stale pdp entries if top level
>>>>>>>>>> + * structure changes, ie va space grows with dynamic page tables.
>>>>>>>>>> + */
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is this still necessary if we reload PDPs via LRI instructions whenever
>>>>>> the address map has changed? That always (AFAICT) causes sufficient
>>>>>> invalidation, so then we might not need to preallocate at all :)
>>>>>
>>>>> LRI reload gets my vote. Please ignore this patch.
>>>>> -Mika
>>>>>
>>>>>> .Dave.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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