Re: [PATCH v5 03/15] IOMMU/x86: support freeing of pagetables

["Roger Pau Monné" <roger.pau@citrix.com>]

On Wed, Jun 01, 2022 at 09:32:44AM +0200, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 31.05.2022 18:25, Roger Pau Monné wrote:
> > On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 01:13:09PM +0200, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >> @@ -566,6 +567,98 @@ struct page_info *iommu_alloc_pgtable(st
> >>      return pg;
> >>  }
> >>  
> >> +/*
> >> + * Intermediate page tables which get replaced by large pages may only be
> >> + * freed after a suitable IOTLB flush. Hence such pages get queued on a
> >> + * per-CPU list, with a per-CPU tasklet processing the list on the assumption
> >> + * that the necessary IOTLB flush will have occurred by the time tasklets get
> >> + * to run. (List and tasklet being per-CPU has the benefit of accesses not
> >> + * requiring any locking.)
> >> + */
> >> +static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct page_list_head, free_pgt_list);
> >> +static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct tasklet, free_pgt_tasklet);
> >> +
> >> +static void free_queued_pgtables(void *arg)
> >> +{
> >> +    struct page_list_head *list = arg;
> >> +    struct page_info *pg;
> >> +    unsigned int done = 0;
> >> +
> >> +    while ( (pg = page_list_remove_head(list)) )
> >> +    {
> >> +        free_domheap_page(pg);
> >> +
> >> +        /* Granularity of checking somewhat arbitrary. */
> >> +        if ( !(++done & 0x1ff) )
> >> +             process_pending_softirqs();
> > 
> > Hm, I'm wondering whether we really want to process pending softirqs
> > here.
> > 
> > Such processing will prevent the watchdog from triggering, which we
> > likely want in production builds.  OTOH in debug builds we should make
> > sure that free_queued_pgtables() doesn't take longer than a watchdog
> > window, or else it's likely to cause issues to guests scheduled on
> > this same pCPU (and calling process_pending_softirqs() will just mask
> > it).
> 
> Doesn't this consideration apply to about every use of the function we
> already have in the code base?

Not really, at least when used by init code or by the debug key
handlers.  This use is IMO different than what I would expect, as it's
a guest triggered path that we believe do require such processing.
Normally we would use continuations for such long going guest
triggered operations.

Thanks, Roger.