Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] kvm/arm: New VMID allocator based on asid(2nd approach)

[Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>]

On Fri, 04 Jun 2021 15:51:29 +0100,
Shameerali Kolothum Thodi <shameerali.kolothum.thodi@huawei.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Marc,
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Marc Zyngier [mailto:maz@kernel.org]
> > Sent: 04 June 2021 14:55
> > To: Shameerali Kolothum Thodi <shameerali.kolothum.thodi@huawei.com>
> > Cc: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org; kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu;
> > linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; will@kernel.org; catalin.marinas@arm.com;
> > james.morse@arm.com; julien.thierry.kdev@gmail.com;
> > suzuki.poulose@arm.com; jean-philippe@linaro.org; Alexandru Elisei
> > <Alexandru.Elisei@arm.com>; Linuxarm <linuxarm@huawei.com>
> > Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] kvm/arm: New VMID allocator based on asid(2nd
> > approach)
> > 
> > On Fri, 04 Jun 2021 09:13:10 +0100,
> > Shameerali Kolothum Thodi <shameerali.kolothum.thodi@huawei.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Shameerali Kolothum Thodi
> > > > Sent: 06 May 2021 17:52
> > > > To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org; kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu;
> > > > linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> > > > Cc: maz@kernel.org; will@kernel.org; catalin.marinas@arm.com;
> > > > james.morse@arm.com; julien.thierry.kdev@gmail.com;
> > > > suzuki.poulose@arm.com; jean-philippe@linaro.org; Linuxarm
> > > > <linuxarm@huawei.com>
> > > > Subject: [RFC PATCH 0/3] kvm/arm: New VMID allocator based on asid(2nd
> > > > approach)
> > > >
> > > > This is based on a suggestion from Will [0] to try out the asid
> > > > based kvm vmid solution as a separate VMID allocator instead of
> > > > the shared lib approach attempted in v4[1].
> > > >
> > > > The idea is to compare both the approaches and see whether the
> > > > shared lib solution with callbacks make sense or not.
> > >
> > > A gentle ping on this. Please take a look and let me know.
> > 
> > I had a look and I don't overly dislike it. I'd like to see the code
> > without the pinned stuff though, at least to ease the reviewing. I
> > haven't tested it in anger, but I have pushed the rebased code at [1]
> > as it really didn't apply to 5.13-rc4.
> 
> Thanks for taking a look and the rebase. I will remove the pinned stuff
> in the next revision as that was added just to compare against the previous
> version.
> 
> > 
> > One thing I'm a bit worried about is that we so far relied on VMID 0
> > never being allocated to a guest, which is now crucial for protected
> > KVM. I can't really convince myself that this can never happen with
> > this.
> 
> Hmm..not sure I quite follow that. As per the current logic vmid 0 is
> reserved and is not allocated to Guest.

And that's the bit I'm struggling to validate here. I guess it works
because cur_idx is set to 1 in new_vmid().

> 
> > Plus, I've found this nugget:
> > 
> > <quote
> > 	max_pinned_vmids = NUM_USER_VMIDS - num_possible_cpus() - 2;
> > </quote>
> > 
> > What is this "- 2"? My hunch is that it should really be "- 1" as VMID
> > 0 is reserved, and we have no equivalent of KPTI for S2.
> 
> I think this is more related to the "pinned vmid" stuff and was borrowed from
> the asid_update_limit() fn in arch/arm64/mm/context.c. But I missed the
> comment that explains the reason behind it. It says,
> 
> ---x---
> 	/*
> 	 * There must always be an ASID available after rollover. Ensure that,
> 	 * even if all CPUs have a reserved ASID and the maximum number of ASIDs
> 	 * are pinned, there still is at least one empty slot in the ASID map.
> 	 */
> 	max_pinned_asids = num_available_asids - num_possible_cpus() - 2;
> ---x---
> 
> So this is to make sure we will have at least one VMID available
> after rollover in case we have pinned the max number of VMIDs. I
> will include that comment to make it clear.

That doesn't really explain the -2. Or is that that we have one for
the extra empty slot, and one for the reserved?

Jean-Philippe?

Thanks,

	M.

-- 
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

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