linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/3] mm: userfaultfd: add new UFFDIO

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Message-ID: <20230511202243.GA5466@monkey>
Date:   Thu, 11 May 2023 13:22:43 -0700
From:   Mike Kravetz <mike.kravetz@...cle.com>
To:     Axel Rasmussen <axelrasmussen@...gle.com>
Cc:     Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>,
        David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>,
        Hongchen Zhang <zhanghongchen@...ngson.cn>,
        Huang Ying <ying.huang@...el.com>,
        James Houghton <jthoughton@...gle.com>,
        "Liam R. Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>,
        Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@...wei.com>,
        "Mike Rapoport (IBM)" <rppt@...nel.org>,
        Nadav Amit <namit@...are.com>,
        Naoya Horiguchi <naoya.horiguchi@....com>,
        Peter Xu <peterx@...hat.com>, Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>,
        ZhangPeng <zhangpeng362@...wei.com>,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] mm: userfaultfd: add new UFFDIO_SIGBUS ioctl

On 05/11/23 11:24, Axel Rasmussen wrote:
> The basic idea here is to "simulate" memory poisoning for VMs. A VM
> running on some host might encounter a memory error, after which some
> page(s) are poisoned (i.e., future accesses SIGBUS). They expect that
> once poisoned, pages can never become "un-poisoned". So, when we live
> migrate the VM, we need to preserve the poisoned status of these pages.
> 
> When live migrating, we try to get the guest running on its new host as
> quickly as possible. So, we start it running before all memory has been
> copied, and before we're certain which pages should be poisoned or not.
> 
> So the basic way to use this new feature is:
> 
> - On the new host, the guest's memory is registered with userfaultfd, in
>   either MISSING or MINOR mode (doesn't really matter for this purpose).
> - On any first access, we get a userfaultfd event. At this point we can
>   communicate with the old host to find out if the page was poisoned.

Just curious, what is this communication channel with the old host?
-- 
Mike Kravetz

> - If so, we can respond with a UFFDIO_SIGBUS - this places a swap marker
>   so any future accesses will SIGBUS. Because the pte is now "present",
>   future accesses won't generate more userfaultfd events, they'll just
>   SIGBUS directly.
> 
> UFFDIO_SIGBUS does not handle unmapping previously-present PTEs. This
> isn't needed, because during live migration we want to intercept
> all accesses with userfaultfd (not just writes, so WP mode isn't useful
> for this). So whether minor or missing mode is being used (or both), the
> PTE won't be present in any case, so handling that case isn't needed.
>