Re: [RFC PATCH 0/4] KVM: x86/mmu: Rework marking folios dirty/accessed

Sean Christopherson
2024-04-03T22:19:37Z

On Wed, Apr 03, 2024, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 03.04.24 02:17, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 02, 2024, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > Aha! But try_to_unmap_one() also checks that refcount==mapcount+1, i.e. will
> > also keep the folio if it has been GUP'd. And __remove_mapping() explicitly states
> > that it needs to play nice with a GUP'd page being marked dirty before the
> > reference is dropped.
>
> >
> > * Must be careful with the order of the tests. When someone has
> > * a ref to the folio, it may be possible that they dirty it then
> > * drop the reference. So if the dirty flag is tested before the
> > * refcount here, then the following race may occur:
> >
> > So while it's totally possible for KVM to get a W=1,D=0 PTE, if I'm reading the
> > code correctly it's safe/legal so long as KVM either (a) marks the folio dirty
> > while holding a reference or (b) marks the folio dirty before returning from its
> > mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start() hook, *AND* obviously if KVM drops its
> > mappings in response to mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start().
> >
>
> Yes, I agree that it should work in the context of vmscan. But (b) is
> certainly a bit harder to swallow than "ordinary" (a) :)

Heh, all the more reason to switch KVM x86 from (b) => (a).

> As raised, if having a writable SPTE would imply having a writable+dirty
> PTE, then KVM MMU code wouldn't have to worry about syncing any dirty bits
> ever back to core-mm, so patch #2 would not be required. ... well, it would
> be replaces by an MMU notifier that notifies about clearing the PTE dirty
> bit :)

Hmm, we essentially already have an mmu_notifier today, since secondary MMUs need
to be invalidated before consuming dirty status. Isn't the end result essentially
a sane FOLL_TOUCH?

> ... because, then, there is also a subtle difference between
> folio_set_dirty() and folio_mark_dirty(), and I am still confused about the
> difference and not competent enough to explain the difference ... and KVM
> always does the former, while zapping code of pagecache folios does the
> latter ... hm

Ugh, just when I thought I finally had my head wrapped around this.

> Related note: IIRC, we usually expect most anon folios to be dirty.
>
> kvm_set_pfn_dirty()->kvm_set_page_dirty() does an unconditional
> SetPageDirty()->folio_set_dirty(). Doing a test-before-set might frequently
> avoid atomic ops.

Noted, definitely worth poking at.