linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 00/13] x86 User Interrupts support

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Date:   Fri, 1 Oct 2021 17:35:58 +0100
From:   Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@...hat.com>
To:     Sohil Mehta <sohil.mehta@...el.com>,
        Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@...aro.org>,
        Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@...aro.org>,
        Richard Henderson <richard.henderson@...aro.org>
Cc:     Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
        Tony Luck <tony.luck@...el.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        Christian Brauner <christian@...uner.io>,
        "Peter Zijlstra (Intel)" <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Raj Ashok <ashok.raj@...el.com>,
        Jacob Pan <jacob.jun.pan@...ux.intel.com>,
        Gayatri Kammela <gayatri.kammela@...el.com>,
        Zeng Guang <guang.zeng@...el.com>,
        "Williams, Dan J" <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Randy E Witt <randy.e.witt@...el.com>,
        "Shankar, Ravi V" <ravi.v.shankar@...el.com>,
        Ramesh Thomas <ramesh.thomas@...el.com>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org, qemu-devel@...gnu.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 00/13] x86 User Interrupts support

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 10:24:24AM -0700, Sohil Mehta wrote:
> 
> On 9/30/2021 9:30 AM, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 09:31:34PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > > 
> > > I spent some time reviewing the docs (ISE) and contemplating how this all fits together, and I have a high level question:
> > > 
> > > Can someone give an example of a realistic workload that would benefit from SENDUIPI and precisely how it would use SENDUIPI?  Or an example of a realistic workload that would benefit from hypothetical device-initiated user interrupts and how it would use them?  I'm having trouble imagining something that wouldn't work as well or better by simply polling, at least on DMA-coherent architectures like x86.
> > I was wondering the same thing. One thing came to mind:
> > 
> > An application that wants to be *interrupted* from what it's doing
> > rather than waiting until the next polling point. For example,
> > applications that are CPU-intensive and have green threads. I can't name
> > a real application like this though :P.
> 
> Thank you Stefan and Andy for giving this some thought.
> 
> We are consolidating the information internally on where and how exactly we
> expect to see benefits with real workloads for the various sources of User
> Interrupts. It will take a few days to get back on this one.

One possible use case came to mind in QEMU's TCG just-in-time compiler:

QEMU's TCG threads execute translated code. There are events that
require interrupting these threads. Today a check is performed at the
start of every translated block. Most of the time the check is false and
it's a waste of CPU.

User interrupts can eliminate the need for checks by interrupting TCG
threads when events occur.

I don't know whether this will improve performance or how feasible it is
to implement, but I've added people who might have ideas. (For a summary
of user interrupts, see
https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/871113/60652640e11fc5df/.)

Stefan

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