Re: [PATCH v2 0/4] Fix accessed bit tracking

Xiao Guangrong
2010-06-08T08:33:31Z

Avi Kivity wrote:
> On 06/08/2010 09:53 AM, Xiao Guangrong wrote:
>>
>> Avi Kivity wrote:
>>
>>> On 06/08/2010 05:35 AM, Xiao Guangrong wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> We can avoid the exchange in most cases, for example if the new
>>>>> spte has
>>>>> the accessed bit set (already in the patch set) or if the page is
>>>>> already marked as accessed, or if we see the old spte has the accessed
>>>>> bit set (so no race can occur). I'll update the patches to avoid
>>>>> atomics when possible.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Umm, the reason that we need atomics here is to avoid vcpu to update
>>>> spte when we read A bit
>>>> form it, so, perhaps we can use below way to avoid atomics completely:
>>>>
>>>> - set reserved bit in spte
>>>> - get A bit form spte
>>>> - set new spte
>>>>
>>>> the worst case is cause vcpu #PF here, but it doesn't matter since the
>>>> old mapping is already invalid,
>>>> also need a remote tlb flush later.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> To set the reserved bit in the spte, you need an atomic operation (well,
>>> unless you use a sub-word-acccess to set a reserved bit in the high 32
>>> bits).
>>>
>> I think we no need atomic here, for example, we can do it like this:
>>
>> *spte |= RSVD_BIT
>> [ maybe need a write barrier here? ]
>>
>
> That can drop an A bit. If *spte starts out with A cleared, we can have
>
> cpu0 cpu1
>
> fetch *spte (A=0)
> set A bit
> write *spte (A=0, RSVD=1)
>

Yes, you are right, i forget it :-(, we can avoid it by only touch higher 32 bits
as you say.

>
>> After this sentence completed, we can ensure that the spte can not
>> updated A bit
>> by vcpu, so we can get A bit safely.
>>
>
> You also need a remote tlb flush...

Maybe it not need, since we only need get A bit here, after:

set reserved bit in spte

if the spte is in tlb, the A bit must 1, we can get it correctly later,
otherwise, if cpu try to access 'spte' mapping, it will cause #PF

>
>>>> Yes, but atomics are "LOCK" instructions, it can stop multiple cpus
>>>> runing in parallel.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Only if those cpus are accessing the same word you're accessing.
>>>
>>>
>> Oh, you are right, the LOCK only locked the memory defined by the
>> destination operand,
>> but i also recall that page table access can pass LOCK instruction,
>> below description
>> is form intel' spec Vol. 3 7-5:
>>
>> Locked operations are atomic with respect to all other memory
>> operations and all externally
>> visible events. Only instruction fetch and page table accesses can
>> pass locked instructions.
>> Locked instructions can be used to synchronize data written by one
>> processor and read by another
>> processor.
>>
>
> But actually setting the A bit will use LOCK itself. So in the
> following sequence
>
>
> write pte (A=0)
> test_and_clear_bit(A, pte)
> access memory through pte
>
> the test_and_clear_bit can return A=1 due to speculation and the
> parapgraph above, but setting the A bit by the processor will happen
> with a bus lock, so it won't lose information.
>

OH, sorry for my fault, thanks a lot, Avi