netdev - Re: [PATCH] openvswitch: Orphan frags before sending to userspace via Netlink to avoid guest stall

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Message-ID: <5319BBAE.7030109@citrix.com>
Date:	Fri, 7 Mar 2014 12:29:34 +0000
From:	Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com>
To:	Pravin Shelar <pshelar@...ira.com>
CC:	Jesse Gross <jesse@...ira.com>, Thomas Graf <tgraf@...hat.com>,
	"dev@...nvswitch.org" <dev@...nvswitch.org>,
	<xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org>, netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <kvm@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] openvswitch: Orphan frags before sending to userspace
 via Netlink to avoid guest stall

On 07/03/14 04:46, Pravin Shelar wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:09 AM, Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com> wrote:
>> Do you have any feedback on this? I'm also adding KVM list as they might be
>> interested in this.
>>
>> Zoli
>>
>>
>> On 28/02/14 19:16, Zoltan Kiss wrote:
>>>
>>> The kernel datapath now switched to zerocopy Netlink messages, but that
>>> also
>>> means that the pages on frags array are sent straight to userspace. If
>>> those
>>> pages came outside the kernel, we have to swap them out with local copies.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com>
>
> I do not think this is required, netlink zero copy only maps
> pre-allocated buffers to user-space.
How do you mean "pre-allocated"? By who?

As far as I've seen the skb in this function came straight from the 
device (vif in our case), and skb_zerocopy just copy the frags to 
user_skb, which is sent to the userspace. Those frags contain pages from 
guest, and it's a bad idea to pass them to userspace: e.g if userspace 
dies in the meantime, what happens with them? Also, in Xen's case they 
are actually not mapped to userspace, so accessing them can lead to garbage.

Zoli
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