Re: [EXTERNAL] [PATCH v2] KVM: Don't actually set a request when evicting vCPUs for GFN cache invd

David Woodhouse
2022-02-25T17:00:10Z

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On Fri, 2022-02-25 at 16:13 +0000, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022, Woodhouse, David wrote:
> > Since we need an active vCPU context to do dirty logging (thanks, dirty
> > ring)... and since any time vcpu_run exits to userspace for any reason
> > might be the last time we ever get an active vCPU context... I think
> > that kind of fundamentally means that we must flush dirty state to the
> > log on *every* return to userspace, doesn't it?
>
> I would rather add a variant of mark_page_dirty_in_slot() that takes a vCPU, which
> we whould have in all cases. I see no reason to require use of kvm_get_running_vcpu().

We already have kvm_vcpu_mark_page_dirty(), but it can't use just 'some
vcpu' because the dirty ring is lockless. So if you're ever going to
use anything other than kvm_get_running_vcpu() we need to add locks.

And while we *could* do that, I don't think it would negate the
fundamental observation that *any* time we return from vcpu_run to
userspace, that could be the last time. Userspace might read the dirty
log for the *last* time, and any internally-cached "oh, at some point
we need to mark <this> page dirty" is lost because by the time the vCPU
is finally destroyed, it's too late.

I think I'm going to rip out the 'dirty' flag from the gfn_to_pfn_cache
completely and add a function (to be called with an active vCPU
context) which marks the page dirty *now*.

KVM_GUEST_USES_PFN users like nested VMX will be expected to do this
before returning from vcpu_run anytime it's in L2 guest mode.

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