[PATCH 01/18] KVM: x86/mmu: Flush remote TLBs iff MMU-writable flag is cleared from RO SPTE

Sean Christopherson
2024-10-11T02:10:55Z

Don't force a remote TLB flush if KVM happens to effectively "refresh" a
read-only SPTE that is still MMU-Writable, as KVM allows MMU-Writable SPTEs
to have Writable TLB entries, even if the SPTE is !Writable. Remote TLBs
need to be flushed only when creating a read-only SPTE for write-tracking,
i.e. when installing a !MMU-Writable SPTE.

In practice, especially now that KVM doesn't overwrite existing SPTEs when
prefetching, KVM will rarely "refresh" a read-only, MMU-Writable SPTE,
i.e. this is unlikely to eliminate many, if any, TLB flushes. But, more
precisely flushing makes it easier to understand exactly when KVM does and
doesn't need to flush.

Note, x86 architecturally requires relevant TLB entries to be invalidated
on a page fault, i.e. there is no risk of putting a vCPU into an infinite
loop of read-only page faults.

Cc: Yan Zhao <yan.y.zhao@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
---
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c | 12 +++++++-----
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.c | 6 ------
2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
index 55eeca931e23..176fc37540df 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
@@ -514,9 +514,12 @@ static u64 mmu_spte_update_no_track(u64 *sptep, u64 new_spte)
/* Rules for using mmu_spte_update:
* Update the state bits, it means the mapped pfn is not changed.
*
- * Whenever an MMU-writable SPTE is overwritten with a read-only SPTE, remote
- * TLBs must be flushed. Otherwise rmap_write_protect will find a read-only
- * spte, even though the writable spte might be cached on a CPU's TLB.
+ * If the MMU-writable flag is cleared, i.e. the SPTE is write-protected for
+ * write-tracking, remote TLBs must be flushed, even if the SPTE was read-only,
+ * as KVM allows stale Writable TLB entries to exist. When dirty logging, KVM
+ * flushes TLBs based on whether or not dirty bitmap/ring entries were reaped,
+ * not whether or not SPTEs were modified, i.e. only the write-tracking case
+ * needs to flush at the time the SPTEs is modified, before dropping mmu_lock.
*
* Returns true if the TLB needs to be flushed
*/
@@ -533,8 +536,7 @@ static bool mmu_spte_update(u64 *sptep, u64 new_spte)
* we always atomically update it, see the comments in
* spte_has_volatile_bits().
*/
- if (is_mmu_writable_spte(old_spte) &&
- !is_writable_pte(new_spte))
+ if (is_mmu_writable_spte(old_spte) && !is_mmu_writable_spte(new_spte))
flush = true;

/*
diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.c
index f1a50a78badb..e5af69a8f101 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.c
@@ -133,12 +133,6 @@ static bool kvm_is_mmio_pfn(kvm_pfn_t pfn)
*/
bool spte_has_volatile_bits(u64 spte)
{
- /*
- * Always atomically update spte if it can be updated
- * out of mmu-lock, it can ensure dirty bit is not lost,
- * also, it can help us to get a stable is_writable_pte()
- * to ensure tlb flush is not missed.
- */
if (!is_writable_pte(spte) && is_mmu_writable_spte(spte))
return true;

--
2.47.0.rc1.288.g06298d1525-goog