linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] arm64: errata: Minimize tlb flush due to vttbr writes on AmpereOne

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Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2024 09:45:59 +0000
From: Oliver Upton <oliver.upton@...ux.dev>
To: Ganapatrao Kulkarni <gankulkarni@...amperecomputing.com>
Cc: kvmarm@...ts.cs.columbia.edu, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, maz@...nel.org, catalin.marinas@....com,
	will@...nel.org, suzuki.poulose@....com, james.morse@....com,
	corbet@....net, boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com,
	darren@...amperecomputing.com, d.scott.phillips@...erecomputing.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] arm64: errata: Minimize tlb flush due to vttbr writes on
 AmpereOne

On Wed, Feb 07, 2024 at 01:04:58AM -0800, Ganapatrao Kulkarni wrote:
> AmpereOne implementation is doing tlb flush when ever there is
> a write to vttbr_el2. As per KVM implementation, vttbr_el2 is updated
> with VM's S2-MMU while return to VM. This is not necessary when there
> is no VM context switch and a just return to same Guest.
> 
> Adding a check to avoid the vttbr_el2 write if the same value
> already exist to prevent needless tlb flush.

Sorry, zero interest in taking what is really a uarch optimization.
The errata framework exists to allow the kernel achieve *correctness*
on a variety of hardware and is not a collection of party tricks for
optimizing any given implementation.

Think of the precedent this would establish. What would stop
implementers from, say, changing out our memcpy implementation into a
a hundred different uarch-specific routines. That isn't maintainable,
nor is it even testable as most folks don't have access to your
hardware.

Ignoring all of that -- I question the necessity of these patches
altogether. KVM writes to VTTBR at the time of vcpu load as of commit
934bf871f011 ("KVM: arm64: Load the stage-2 MMU context in
kvm_vcpu_load_vhe()"), which should drastically reduce the overhead of
this hardware fix.

--
Thanks,
Oliver