From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S934488Ab3FSL5I (ORCPT ); Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:57:08 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:23885 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S934052Ab3FSL5G (ORCPT ); Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:57:06 -0400 Message-ID: <51C19C4C.3000800@redhat.com> Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:55:56 +0200 From: Paolo Bonzini User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130514 Thunderbird/17.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Xiao Guangrong CC: gleb@redhat.com, avi.kivity@gmail.com, mtosatti@redhat.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/7] KVM: MMU: document clear_spte_count References: <1371632965-20077-1-git-send-email-xiaoguangrong@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <1371632965-20077-3-git-send-email-xiaoguangrong@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <51C196E9.2080508@redhat.com> <51C19BA6.2060501@linux.vnet.ibm.com> In-Reply-To: <51C19BA6.2060501@linux.vnet.ibm.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.5.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Il 19/06/2013 13:53, Xiao Guangrong ha scritto: > On 06/19/2013 07:32 PM, Paolo Bonzini wrote: >> Il 19/06/2013 11:09, Xiao Guangrong ha scritto: >>> Document it to Documentation/virtual/kvm/mmu.txt >> >> While reviewing the docs, I looked at the code. >> >> Why can't this happen? >> >> CPU 1: __get_spte_lockless CPU 2: __update_clear_spte_slow >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> write low >> read count >> read low >> read high >> write high >> check low and count >> update count >> >> The check passes, but CPU 1 read a "torn" SPTE. > > In this case, CPU 1 will read the "new low bits" and the "old high bits", right? > the P bit in the low bits is cleared when do __update_clear_spte_slow, i.e, it is > not present, so the whole value is ignored. Indeed that's what the comment says, too. But then why do we need the count at all? The spte that is read is exactly the same before and after the count is updated. Paolo