Re: [PATCH v2] ARM: KVM: add irqfd and irq routing support

Eric Auger
2014-06-19T14:40:40Z

On 06/19/2014 04:13 PM, Will Deacon wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm currently adding VFIO support for kvmtool, so I'm interested in this
> patch series (although actually from a PCI perspective).
>
> Eric: can you CC me on future versions of this series please? Once things
> start to stabilise, I can help with testing.

Hi Will,

sure I will CC you.
>
> On Thu, Jun 05, 2014 at 03:39:50PM +0100, Christoffer Dall wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 05, 2014 at 03:15:15PM +0200, Eric Auger wrote:
>>> On 06/05/2014 12:28 PM, Christoffer Dall wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Jun 02, 2014 at 09:29:56AM +0200, Eric Auger wrote:
>>>>> + kvm_debug("Inject irqchip routed vIRQ %d\n",
>>>>> + e->irqchip.pin);
>>>>> + kvm_vgic_inject_irq(kvm, 0, spi, level);
>>>>> + /*
>>>>> + * toggling down vIRQ wire is directly handled in
>>>>> + * process_maintenance for this reason:
>>>>> + * irqfd_resampler_ack is called in
>>>>> + * process_maintenance which holds the dist lock.
>>>>> + * irqfd_resampler_ack calls kvm_set_irq
>>>>> + * which ends_up calling kvm_vgic_inject_irq.
>>>>> + * This later attempts to take the lock -> deadlock!
>>>>> + */
>>>>
>>>> Not sure I understand this comment. What are we trying to achieve, are
>>>> we using some sort of a workaround to avoid a deadlock?
>>>
>>> What I wanted to point out here is I would have prefered to handle both
>>> levels 0 and 1 in a symetrical manner. irqfd_resampler_ack (in eventfd)
>>> is calling kvm_set_irq with level 0. This would be the prefered way to
>>> toggle down the SPI at GIC input instead of doing this in
>>> process_maintenance in a dirty manner. However this does work because
>>> irqfd_resampler_ack is called in process_maintenance (the place where
>>> the EOI is analyzed). process_maintenance holds the dist lock and would
>>> eventually call kvm_vgic_inject_irq which also attempts to take the lock.
>>>
>>
>> I'm afraid that's too much of a hack. There's an external mechanism to
>> set an interrupt line to active (level=1) or inactive (level=0) and we
>> must support both.
>>
>> The fact that vgic_process_maintenance() can set the interrupt line to
>> inactive is just something we exploit to properly handle level-triggered
>> interrupts, but the main API to the VGIC must absolutely be supported.
>>
>> Am I completely wrong here?
>>
>> The locking issue can be solved by splitting up the locking into a finer
>> granularity as needed or deferring the call to irqfd_resampler_ack()
>> until after unlocking the distributor lock in kvm_vgic_sync_hwstate().
>
> Why can't we do what PowerPC does for mpic and x86 does for IOAPIC and
> simply drop the distributor lock across the call to kvm_notify_acked_irq?

Yes, I am about to release a new version for this RFC that uses a finer
granularity for the dist lock, as you and Christoffer suggested.

>
> Given that I think the eventfd callbacks can block, holding a spinlock isn't
> safe anyway, regardless of the vgic re-entrancy issue.
yes you're fully right.

Best Regards

Eric
>
> Will
>