Date:	Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:26:03 +0200
From:	Avi Kivity <avi@...ranet.com>
To:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
CC:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kvm-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/13] KVM: memory slot management

Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Friday 27 October 2006 07:47, Avi Kivity wrote:
>   
>> Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>     
>>> - no need to preallocate memory that the guest doesn't actually use.
>>>   
>>>       
>> Well, a fully vitrualized guest will likely use all the memory it gets.  
>> Linux certainly will.
>>     
>
> Only if it does lots of disk accesses that load stuff into
> page/inode/dentry cache. Single-application guests don't necessarily
> do that.
>
>   

Okay.  FWIW, you can demand allocate with other schemes as well.

>>> - guest memory can be paged to disk.
>>> - you can mmap files into multiple guest for fast communication
>>> - you can use mmap host files as backing store for guest blockdevices,
>>>   including ext2 with the -o xip mount option to avoid double paging
>>>   
>>>       
>> What do you mean exactly? to respond to a block device read by mmap()ing 
>> the backing file into the pages the host requested?
>>
>> (e.g. turn a host bio read into a guest mmap)
>>     
>
> The idea would be to mmap the file into the guest real address space.
> With -o xip, the page cache for the virtual device would basically
> reside in that high address range.
>   

Ah, I see what you mean now.  Like the "memory technology device" thing.



> Guest users reading/writing files on it cause a memcopy between guest
> user space and the host file mapping, done by the guest file system
> implementation.
>
> The interesting point here is how to handle a host page fault on the
> file mapping. The solution on z/VM for this is to generate a special
> exception for this that will be caught by the guest kernel, telling
> it to wait until the page is there. The guest kernel can then put the
> current thread to sleep and do something else, until a second exception
> tells it that the page has been loaded by the host. The guest then
> wakes up the sleeping thread.
>
> This can work the same way for host file backed (guest block device)
> and host anonymous (guest RAM) memory.
>
>   

Certainly something like that can be done, for paravirtualized guests.

>> If we allow the pages to be writable, the guest could write into the 
>> virtual block device just by modifying a read page (which might have be 
>> discarded and no longer related to the block device)
>>     
>
> In your virtual mmu (or nested page table), you need to make sure that
> the page is mapped with the intersection of the guest vm_prot and host
> vm_prot into guest users.
>
>   

Yes.  My comment was based on an incorrect understanding of your suggestion.

>> 2. The next mmu implementation, which caches guest translations.
>>
>> The potential problem above now becomes acute.  The guest will have 
>> kernel mappings for every page, and after a short while they'll all be 
>> faulted in and locked.  This defeats the swap integration which is IMO a 
>> very strong point.
>>
>> We can work around that by periodically forcing out translations (some 
>> kind of clock algorithm) at some rate so the host vm can have a go at 
>> them.  That can turn out to be expensive as we'll need to interrupt all 
>> running vcpus to flush (real) tlb entries.
>>     
>
> Don't understand. Can't one CPU cause a TLB entry to be flushed on all
> CPUs?
>
>   

It's not about tlb entries.  The shadow page tables collaples a GV -> HV 
-> HP  double translation into a GV -> HP page table.  When the Linux vm 
goes around evicting pages, it invalidates those mappings.

There are two solutions possible: lock pages which participate in these 
translations (and their number can be large) or modify the Linux vm to 
consult a reverse mapping and remove the translations (in which case TLB 
entries need to be removed).

>>   b.  we need to hide the userspace portion of the monitor from the 
>> guest physical address space
>>     
>
> That depends on your trust model. You could simply say that you expect
> the guest real mode to have the same privileges as the host application
> (your monitor), and not care if a guest can shoot itself in the foot
> by overwriting the monitor.
>   

It can shoot not only its foot, but anything the monitor's uid has 
access to.  Host files, the host network, other guests belonging to the 
user, etc.

>>   c.  we need to extend host tlb invalidations to invalidate tlbs on guests
>>     
>
> I don't understand much about the x86 specific memory management,
> but shouldn't a TLB invalidate of a given page do the right thing
> on all CPUs, even if they are currently running a guest?
>   
It's worse than I thouht: tlb entries generated by guest accesses are 
tagged with the guest virtual address, to if you remove a guest 
physical/host virtual page you need to invalidate the entire guest tlb.


-- 
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.

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