Re: [PATCH 2/4] KVM: arm64: Don't serialize if the access flag isn't set

Ricardo Koller
2022-11-30T23:21:26Z

On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 08:21:17AM +0000, Marc Zyngier wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 01:23:20 +0000,
> Ricardo Koller <ricarkol@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 09:15:21PM +0000, Oliver Upton wrote:
> > > Hi Ricardo,
> > >
> > > Thanks for having a look.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 12:52:12PM -0800, Ricardo Koller wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 07:19:44PM +0000, Oliver Upton wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > > > + ret = stage2_update_leaf_attrs(pgt, addr, 1, KVM_PTE_LEAF_ATTR_LO_S2_AF, 0,
> > > > > + &pte, NULL, 0);
> > > > > + if (!ret)
> > > > > + dsb(ishst);
> > > >
> > > > At the moment, the only reason for stage2_update_leaf_attrs() to not
> > > > update the PTE is if it's not valid:
> > > >
> > > > if (!kvm_pte_valid(pte))
> > > > return 0;
> > > >
> > > > I guess you could check that as well:
> > > >
> > > > + if (!ret || kvm_pte_valid(pte))
> > > > + dsb(ishst);
> > >
> > > Thanks for catching this.
> > >
> > > Instead of pivoting on the returned PTE value, how about we return
> > > -EAGAIN from the early return in stage2_attr_walker()? It would better
> > > match the pattern used elsewhere in the pgtable code.
> >
> > That works, although I would use another return code (e.g., EINVAL)? as
> > that's not exactly a "try again" type of error.
>
> EINVAL usually is an indication of something that went horribly wrong.
>
> But is that really a failure mode? Here, failing to update the PTE
> should not be considered a failure, but just a benign race: access
> fault being taken on a CPU and the page being evicted on another (not
> unlikely, as the page was marked old before).

I see, I agree, what you describe not look like a failure.

>
> And if I'm correct above, this is definitely a "try again" situation:
> you probably won't take the same type of fault the second time though.
>
> Thanks,
>
> M.
>
> --
> Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.