RE: [RFC] /dev/ioasid uAPI proposal

["Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@intel.com>]

> From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 1:42 AM
> 
> On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 08:10:14AM +0000, Tian, Kevin wrote:
> > > From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>
> > > Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2021 1:36 AM
> > >
> > > On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 07:58:12AM +0000, Tian, Kevin wrote:
> > >
> > > > IOASID nesting can be implemented in two ways: hardware nesting and
> > > > software nesting. With hardware support the child and parent I/O page
> > > > tables are walked consecutively by the IOMMU to form a nested
> translation.
> > > > When it's implemented in software, the ioasid driver is responsible for
> > > > merging the two-level mappings into a single-level shadow I/O page
> table.
> > > > Software nesting requires both child/parent page tables operated
> through
> > > > the dma mapping protocol, so any change in either level can be
> captured
> > > > by the kernel to update the corresponding shadow mapping.
> > >
> > > Why? A SW emulation could do this synchronization during invalidation
> > > processing if invalidation contained an IOVA range.
> >
> > In this proposal we differentiate between host-managed and user-
> > managed I/O page tables. If host-managed, the user is expected to use
> > map/unmap cmd explicitly upon any change required on the page table.
> > If user-managed, the user first binds its page table to the IOMMU and
> > then use invalidation cmd to flush iotlb when necessary (e.g. typically
> > not required when changing a PTE from non-present to present).
> >
> > We expect user to use map+unmap and bind+invalidate respectively
> > instead of mixing them together. Following this policy, map+unmap
> > must be used in both levels for software nesting, so changes in either
> > level are captured timely to synchronize the shadow mapping.
> 
> map+unmap or bind+invalidate is a policy of the IOASID itself set when
> it is created. If you put two different types in a tree then each IOASID
> must continue to use its own operation mode.
> 
> I don't see a reason to force all IOASIDs in a tree to be consistent??

only for software nesting. With hardware support the parent uses map
while the child uses bind.

Yes, the policy is specified per IOASID. But if the policy violates the
requirement in a specific nesting mode, then nesting should fail.

> 
> A software emulated two level page table where the leaf level is a
> bound page table in guest memory should continue to use
> bind/invalidate to maintain the guest page table IOASID even though it
> is a SW construct.

with software nesting the leaf should be a host-managed page table
(or metadata). A bind/invalidate protocol doesn't require the user
to notify the kernel of every page table change. But for software nesting
the kernel must know every change to timely update the shadow/merged 
mapping, otherwise DMA may hit stale mapping.

> 
> The GPA level should use map/unmap because it is a kernel owned page
> table

yes, this is always true.

> 
> Though how to efficiently mix map/unmap on the GPA when there are SW
> nested levels below it looks to be quite challenging.
> 

Thanks
Kevin