Re: [RFC PATCH v2 07/19] RISC-V: KVM: Implement KVM_GET_ONE_REG/KVM_SET_ONE_REG ioctls

From: Anup Patel <anup@brainfault.org>
To: Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@de.ibm.com>
Cc: Anup Patel <Anup.Patel@wdc.com>,
	Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@sifive.com>,
	Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>, Radim K <rkrcmar@redhat.com>,
	Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@linaro.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Atish Patra <Atish.Patra@wdc.com>,
	Alistair Francis <Alistair.Francis@wdc.com>,
	Damien Le Moal <Damien.LeMoal@wdc.com>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
	"kvm@vger.kernel.org" <kvm@vger.kernel.org>,
	"linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org"
	<linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org>,
	"linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2 07/19] RISC-V: KVM: Implement KVM_GET_ONE_REG/KVM_SET_ONE_REG ioctls
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2019 17:26:21 +0530	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAhSdy2PDSpTy1JEEC2LCB4ESvZHBbkVEZ2wqz-D2b7SKD5VSg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <edbed85f-f7ad-a240-1bef-75729b527a69@de.ibm.com>

On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 5:08 PM Christian Borntraeger
<borntraeger@de.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 02.08.19 09:47, Anup Patel wrote:
> > For KVM RISC-V, we use KVM_GET_ONE_REG/KVM_SET_ONE_REG ioctls to access
> > VCPU config and registers from user-space.
> >
> > We have three types of VCPU registers:
> > 1. CONFIG - these are VCPU config and capabilities
> > 2. CORE   - these are VCPU general purpose registers
> > 3. CSR    - these are VCPU control and status registers
> >
> > The CONFIG registers available to user-space are ISA and TIMEBASE. Out
> > of these, TIMEBASE is a read-only register which inform user-space about
> > VCPU timer base frequency. The ISA register is a read and write register
> > where user-space can only write the desired VCPU ISA capabilities before
> > running the VCPU.
> >
> > The CORE registers available to user-space are PC, RA, SP, GP, TP, A0-A7,
> > T0-T6, S0-S11 and MODE. Most of these are RISC-V general registers except
> > PC and MODE. The PC register represents program counter whereas the MODE
> > register represent VCPU privilege mode (i.e. S/U-mode).
> >
> > The CSRs available to user-space are SSTATUS, SIE, STVEC, SSCRATCH, SEPC,
> > SCAUSE, STVAL, SIP, and SATP. All of these are read/write registers.
> >
> > In future, more VCPU register types will be added (such as FP) for the
> > KVM_GET_ONE_REG/KVM_SET_ONE_REG ioctls.
>
> While have ONE_REG will certainly work, have you considered the sync_reg scheme
> (registers as part of kvm_run structure)
> This will speed up the exit to QEMU as you do not have to do multiple ioctls
> (each imposing a systemcall overhead) for one exit.
>
> Ideally you should not exit too often into qemu, but for those cases sync_regs
> is faster than ONE_REG.
>

We will certainly explore sync_regs interface. Reducing exits to user-space
will definitely help.

This is the first series for KVM RISC-V so here we want to establish a stable
and extensible UAPI header using which we will add support to QEMU KVM.

For time being, we are using KVMTOOL for debug and development.

Thanks,
Anup