linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 18/18] x86: request TLB flush to slave CPU using NMI

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <4FED74C9.7020906@hitachi.com>
Date:	Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:26:33 +0900
From:	Tomoki Sekiyama <tomoki.sekiyama.qu@...achi.com>
To:	avi@...hat.com
Cc:	kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
	yrl.pp-manager.tt@...achi.com, mtosatti@...hat.com,
	tglx@...utronix.de, mingo@...hat.com, hpa@...or.com
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 18/18] x86: request TLB flush to slave CPU using NMI

On 2012/06/29 1:38, Avi Kivity wrote:
> On 06/28/2012 09:08 AM, Tomoki Sekiyama wrote:
>> For slave CPUs, it is inapropriate to request TLB flush using IPI.
>> because the IPI may be sent to a KVM guest when the slave CPU is running
>> the guest with direct interrupt routing.
>>
>> Instead, it registers a TLB flush request in per-cpu bitmask and send a NMI
>> to interrupt execution of the guest. Then, NMI handler will check the
>> requests and handles the requests.
> 
> 
> Currently x86's get_user_pages_fast() depends on TLB flushes being held
> up by local_irq_disable().  With this patch, this is no longer true and
> get_user_pages_fast() can race with page table freeing. There are
> patches from Peter Zijlstra to remove this dependency though. 

Thank you for the information. I will check his patches.

> NMIs are
> still slow and fragile when compared to normal interrupts, so this patch
> is somewhat problematic.

OK, always sending NMIs is actually problematic. I should check the
slave core state and send NMIs only when slave guest is
running and NMI is really needed.

Thanks,
-- 
Tomoki Sekiyama <tomoki.sekiyama.qu@...achi.com>
Linux Technology Center
Hitachi, Ltd., Yokohama Research Laboratory

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/