linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 3/3] iommu/vt-d: Rework hitless PASID entry replacement

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Message-ID: <ef58cd8a-504d-457b-b731-f7dfdba0e43c@linux.intel.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:45:16 +0800
From: Baolu Lu <baolu.lu@...ux.intel.com>
To: Samiullah Khawaja <skhawaja@...gle.com>
Cc: Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
 Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>, Kevin Tian <kevin.tian@...el.com>,
 Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...dia.com>, Dmytro Maluka <dmaluka@...omium.org>,
 iommu@...ts.linux.dev, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] iommu/vt-d: Rework hitless PASID entry replacement

On 1/14/26 03:27, Samiullah Khawaja wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 7:03 PM Lu Baolu<baolu.lu@...ux.intel.com> wrote:
>> The Intel VT-d PASID table entry is 512 bits (64 bytes). Because the
>> hardware may fetch this entry in multiple 128-bit chunks, updating the
>> entire entry while it is active (P=1) risks a "torn" read where the
>> hardware observes an inconsistent state.
>>
>> However, certain updates (e.g., changing page table pointers while
>> keeping the translation type and domain ID the same) can be performed
>> hitlessly. This is possible if the update is limited to a single
>> 128-bit chunk while the other chunks remains stable.
>>
>> Introduce a hitless replacement mechanism for PASID entries:
>>
>> - Update 'struct pasid_entry' with a union to support 128-bit
>>    access via the newly added val128[4] array.
>> - Add pasid_support_hitless_replace() to determine if a transition
>>    between an old and new entry is safe to perform atomically.
>>    - For First-level/Nested translations: The first 128 bits (chunk 0)
>>      must remain identical; chunk 1 is updated atomically.
> Looking at the specs, the DID is part of the first 128 bits (chunk 0),
> so I guess for the first level the hitless replacement would not be
> supported since each domain will have a different DID?

It's not necessarily true that each domain will have a different DID. On
Intel IOMMU, all SVA domains can share a single DID. Similarly, multiple
nested domains sitting on top of the same second-stage page table can
also share a DID.

Thanks,
baolu