Re: [PATCH RFC 00/15] KVM: Dirty ring interface

Sean Christopherson
2019-12-02T20:21:24Z

On Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 09:29:42AM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> thanks for the RFC! Just a couple comments before I look at the series
> (for which I don't expect many surprises).
>
> On 29/11/19 22:34, Peter Xu wrote:
> > I marked this series as RFC because I'm at least uncertain on this
> > change of vcpu_enter_guest():
> >
> > if (kvm_check_request(KVM_REQ_DIRTY_RING_FULL, vcpu)) {
> > vcpu->run->exit_reason = KVM_EXIT_DIRTY_RING_FULL;
> > /*
> > * If this is requested, it means that we've
> > * marked the dirty bit in the dirty ring BUT
> > * we've not written the date. Do it now.
> > */
> > r = kvm_emulate_instruction(vcpu, 0);
> > r = r >= 0 ? 0 : r;
> > goto out;
> > }
>
> This is not needed, it will just be a false negative (dirty page that
> actually isn't dirty). The dirty bit will be cleared when userspace
> resets the ring buffer; then the instruction will be executed again and
> mark the page dirty again. Since ring full is not a common condition,
> it's not a big deal.

Side topic, KVM_REQ_DIRTY_RING_FULL is misnamed, it's set when a ring goes
above its soft limit, not when the ring is actually full. It took quite a
bit of digging to figure out whether or not PML was broken...