Re: [PATCH RFC 04/15] KVM: Implement ring-based dirty memory tracking

Alex Williamson
2019-12-17T16:18:52Z

On Tue, 17 Dec 2019 02:28:33 +0000
"Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@intel.com> wrote:

> > From: Paolo Bonzini
> > Sent: Monday, December 16, 2019 6:08 PM
> >
> > [Alex and Kevin: there are doubts below regarding dirty page tracking
> > from VFIO and mdev devices, which perhaps you can help with]
> >
> > On 15/12/19 18:21, Peter Xu wrote:
> > > init_rmode_tss
> > > vmx_set_tss_addr
> > > kvm_vm_ioctl_set_tss_addr [*]
> > > init_rmode_identity_map
> > > vmx_create_vcpu [*]
> >
> > These don't matter because their content is not visible to userspace
> > (the backing storage is mmap-ed by __x86_set_memory_region). In fact, d
> >
> > > vmx_write_pml_buffer
> > > kvm_arch_write_log_dirty [&]
> > > kvm_write_guest
> > > kvm_hv_setup_tsc_page
> > > kvm_guest_time_update [&]
> > > nested_flush_cached_shadow_vmcs12 [&]
> > > kvm_write_wall_clock [&]
> > > kvm_pv_clock_pairing [&]
> > > kvmgt_rw_gpa [?]
> >
> > This then expands (partially) to
> >
> > intel_gvt_hypervisor_write_gpa
> > emulate_csb_update
> > emulate_execlist_ctx_schedule_out
> > complete_execlist_workload
> > complete_current_workload
> > workload_thread
> > emulate_execlist_ctx_schedule_in
> > prepare_execlist_workload
> > prepare_workload
> > dispatch_workload
> > workload_thread
> >
> > So KVMGT is always writing to GPAs instead of IOVAs and basically
> > bypassing a guest IOMMU. So here it would be better if kvmgt was
> > changed not use kvm_write_guest (also because I'd probably have nacked
> > that if I had known :)).
>
> I agree.
>
> >
> > As far as I know, there is some work on live migration with both VFIO
> > and mdev, and that probably includes some dirty page tracking API.
> > kvmgt could switch to that API, or there could be VFIO APIs similar to
> > kvm_write_guest but taking IOVAs instead of GPAs. Advantage: this would
> > fix the GPA/IOVA confusion. Disadvantage: userspace would lose the
> > tracking of writes from mdev devices. Kevin, are these writes used in
> > any way? Do the calls to intel_gvt_hypervisor_write_gpa covers all
> > writes from kvmgt vGPUs, or can the hardware write to memory as well
> > (which would be my guess if I didn't know anything about kvmgt, which I
> > pretty much don't)?
>
> intel_gvt_hypervisor_write_gpa covers all writes due to software mediation.
>
> for hardware updates, it needs be mapped in IOMMU through vfio_pin_pages
> before any DMA happens. The ongoing dirty tracking effort in VFIO will take
> every pinned page through that API as dirtied.
>
> However, currently VFIO doesn't implement any vfio_read/write_guest
> interface yet. and it doesn't make sense to use vfio_pin_pages for software
> dirtied pages, as pin is unnecessary and heavy involving iommu invalidation.
>
> Alex, if you are OK we'll work on such interface and move kvmgt to use it.
> After it's accepted, we can also mark pages dirty through this new interface
> in Kirti's dirty page tracking series.

I'm not sure what you're asking for, is it an interface for the host
CPU to read/write the memory backing of a mapped IOVA range without
pinning pages? That seems like something like that would make sense for
an emulation model where a page does not need to be pinned for physical
DMA. If you're asking more for an interface that understands the
userspace driver is a VM (ie. implied using a _guest postfix on the
function name) and knows about GPA mappings beyond the windows directly
mapped for device access, I'd not look fondly on such a request.
Thanks,

Alex