linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH linux 1/2] xen: delay xen_hvm_init_time

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Date:   Sun, 24 Oct 2021 22:20:34 -0700
From:   Dongli Zhang <dongli.zhang@...cle.com>
To:     Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com>,
        xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org, jgross@...e.com,
        sstabellini@...nel.org, tglx@...utronix.de, mingo@...hat.com,
        bp@...en8.de, hpa@...or.com, andrew.cooper3@...rix.com,
        george.dunlap@...rix.com, iwj@...project.org, jbeulich@...e.com,
        julien@....org, wl@....org, joe.jin@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH linux 1/2] xen: delay xen_hvm_init_time_ops() if kdump is
 boot on vcpu>=32

Hi Boris,

On 10/12/21 10:17 AM, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
> 
> On 10/12/21 3:24 AM, Dongli Zhang wrote:
>> The sched_clock() can be used very early since upstream
>> commit 857baa87b642 ("sched/clock: Enable sched clock early"). In addition,
>> with upstream commit 38669ba205d1 ("x86/xen/time: Output xen sched_clock
>> time from 0"), kdump kernel in Xen HVM guest may panic at very early stage
>> when accessing &__this_cpu_read(xen_vcpu)->time as in below:
> 
> 
> Please drop "upstream". It's always upstream here.
> 
> 
>> +
>> +    /*
>> +     * Only MAX_VIRT_CPUS 'vcpu_info' are embedded inside 'shared_info'
>> +     * and the VM would use them until xen_vcpu_setup() is used to
>> +     * allocate/relocate them at arbitrary address.
>> +     *
>> +     * However, when Xen HVM guest panic on vcpu >= MAX_VIRT_CPUS,
>> +     * per_cpu(xen_vcpu, cpu) is still NULL at this stage. To access
>> +     * per_cpu(xen_vcpu, cpu) via xen_clocksource_read() would panic.
>> +     *
>> +     * Therefore we delay xen_hvm_init_time_ops() to
>> +     * xen_hvm_smp_prepare_boot_cpu() when boot vcpu is >= MAX_VIRT_CPUS.
>> +     */
>> +    if (xen_vcpu_nr(0) >= MAX_VIRT_CPUS)
> 
> 
> What about always deferring this when panicing? Would that work?
> 
> 
> Deciding whether to defer based on cpu number feels a bit awkward.
> 
> 
> -boris
> 

I did some tests and I do not think this works well. I prefer to delay the
initialization only for VCPU >= 32.

This is the syslog if we always delay xen_hvm_init_time_ops(), regardless
whether VCPU >= 32.

[    0.032372] Booting paravirtualized kernel on Xen HVM
[    0.032376] clocksource: refined-jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles:
0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 1910969940391419 ns
[    0.037683] setup_percpu: NR_CPUS:64 nr_cpumask_bits:64 nr_cpu_ids:64
nr_node_ids:2
[    0.041876] percpu: Embedded 49 pages/cpu s162968 r8192 d29544 u262144

--> There is a clock backwards from 0.041876 to 0.000010.

[    0.000010] Built 2 zonelists, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 2015744
[    0.000012] Policy zone: Normal
[    0.000014] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-rc6xen+
root=UUID=2a5975ab-a059-4697-9aee-7a53ddfeea21 ro text console=ttyS0,115200n8
console=tty1 crashkernel=512M-:192M


This is because the initial pv_sched_clock is native_sched_clock(), and it
switches to xen_sched_clock() in xen_hvm_init_time_ops(). Is it fine to always
have a clock backward for non-kdump kernel?

To avoid the clock backward, we may register a dummy clocksource which always
returns 0, before xen_hvm_init_time_ops(). I do not think this is reasonable.

Thank you very much!

Dongli Zhang