Re: [patch 0/3] KVM CPU frequency change hypercalls

Paolo Bonzini
2017-02-24T12:17:18Z

On 24/02/2017 12:50, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
>>>
>>> On all other cpufreq implementations, these boundaries still need to
>>> be set. Then, a "governor" must be selected. Such a "governor" decides
>>> what speed the processor shall run within the boundaries. One such
>>> "governor" is the "userspace" governor. This one allows the user - or
>>> a yet-to-implement userspace program - to decide what specific speed
>>> the processor shall run at.
>> The userspace program sets a policy for the whole system.
> No, its per cpu.

Yeah, what I mean is that userspace program can be per-CPU, but it looks
at all the processes running on that CPU ("the whole system"). This is
very different from a guest, which is isolated.

>>>> That's bad. This feature is broken by design unless it does proper
>>>> save/restore across preemption.
>>> Whats the current usecase, or forseeable future usecase, for save/restore
>>> across preemption again? (which would validate the broken by design
>>> claim).
>> Stop a guest that is using cpufreq, start a guest that is not using it.
>> The second guest's performance now depends on the state that the first
>> guest left in cpufreq.
>
> Nothing forbids the host to implement switching with the
> current hypercall interface: all you need is a scheduler
> hook.

Can it be done in vcpu_load/vcpu_put? But you still would have two
components (KVM and sysfs) potentially fighting over the frequency, and
that's still a bit ugly.

Paolo