Re: Possible nohz-full/RCU issue in arm64 KVM

Frederic Weisbecker
2021-12-20T16:11:34Z

On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 01:21:39PM +0000, Mark Rutland wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 12:51:57PM +0100, Nicolas Saenz Julienne wrote:
> > Hi All,
>
> Hi,
>
> > arm64's guest entry code does the following:
> >
> > int kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
> > {
> > [...]
> >
> > guest_enter_irqoff();
> >
> > ret = kvm_call_hyp_ret(__kvm_vcpu_run, vcpu);
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > local_irq_enable();
> >
> > /*
> > * We do local_irq_enable() before calling guest_exit() so
> > * that if a timer interrupt hits while running the guest we
> > * account that tick as being spent in the guest. We enable
> > * preemption after calling guest_exit() so that if we get
> > * preempted we make sure ticks after that is not counted as
> > * guest time.
> > */
> > guest_exit();
> > [...]
> > }
> >
> >
> > On a nohz-full CPU, guest_{enter,exit}() delimit an RCU extended quiescent
> > state (EQS). Any interrupt happening between local_irq_enable() and
> > guest_exit() should disable that EQS. Now, AFAICT all el0 interrupt handlers
> > do the right thing if trggered in this context, but el1's won't. Is it
> > possible to hit an el1 handler (for example __el1_irq()) there?
>
> I think you're right that the EL1 handlers can trigger here and won't exit the
> EQS.
>
> I'm not immediately sure what we *should* do here. What does x86 do for an IRQ
> taken from a guest mode? I couldn't spot any handling of that case, but I'm not
> familiar enough with the x86 exception model to know if I'm looking in the
> right place.

This is one of the purposes of rcu_irq_enter(). el1 handlers don't call irq_enter()?

Thanks.