Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH RFC] virtio: put last seen used index into ring itself

[Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>]

On Thu, 6 May 2010 07:30:00 pm Avi Kivity wrote:
> On 05/05/2010 11:58 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > +	/* We publish the last-seen used index at the end of the available ring.
> > +	 * It is at the end for backwards compatibility. */
> > +	vr->last_used_idx =&(vr)->avail->ring[num];
> > +	/* Verify that last used index does not spill over the used ring. */
> > +	BUG_ON((void *)vr->last_used_idx +
> > +	       sizeof *vr->last_used_idx>  (void *)vr->used);
> >   }
> >    
> 
> Shouldn't this be on its own cache line?

It's next to the available ring; because that's where the guest publishes
its data.  That whole page is guest-write, host-read.

Putting it on a cacheline by itself would be a slight pessimization; the host
cpu would have to get the last_used_idx cacheline and the avail descriptor
cacheline every time.  This way, they are sometimes the same cacheline.

Hope that clarifies,
Rusty.