Re: [PATCH 0/7] Consolidate vcpu ioctl locking

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On 16.05.2010, at 11:09, Avi Kivity wrote:

> On 05/16/2010 12:01 PM, Alexander Graf wrote:
>> 
>>> That's what the world looked like in 2006.
>>> 
>>> We could change it, but there's not much point, since having the local apic in the kernel is pretty much a requirement for reasonable performance.
>>>     
>> Well, I'm not convinced yet that's the case for PPC as well. The timer is in-cpu anyways and I don't see why IPIs should be slow with a userspace pic - if we keep the overhead low.
>>   
> 
> If it's at all possible keep the mpic out.  I am _not_ advocating pushing ppc's mpic into the kernel.
> 
>> So let me think this through. With remote interrupt injection we have.
>> 
>> * thread 1 does vcpu_run
>> * thread 2 triggers KVM_INTERRUPT on fd
>> * thread 2 signals thread 1 so we're sure the interrupt gets injected
>> * thread 1 exits into qemu
>>   
> 
> This doesn't seem necessary.  The kernel can own the interrupt line, so it remembers it from the last KVM_INTERRUPT.

It's not? On signals we always exit to userspace, no?

> 
>> * thread 1 goes back into the vcpu, triggering an interrupt
>> 
>> Without we have:
>> 
>> * thread 1 does vcpu_run
>> * thread 2 wants to trigger an an interrupt, sets the qemu internal bit
>> * thread 2 signals thread 1 so we're sure the interrupt gets processed
>> * thread 1 exits into qemu
>> * thread 1 triggers KVM_INTERRUPT on fd
>> * thread 1 goes into the vcpu
>> 
>> So we don't really buy anything from doing the remote injection. Hrm.
>>   
> 
> Not if you make interrupt injection a lightweight exit.

Please elaborate.

> 
>> What's somewhat striking me here though is - why do we need KVM_INTERRUPT when there's all those kvm_run fields? Can't we just do interrupt injection by setting run->trigger_interrupt? There's only a single "interrupt line" on the CPU anyways. That way we'd save the ioctl and get rid of the locking problem altogether.
>>   
> 
> That's what x86 does.  However, it's synchronous.

For everyone except for the vcpu thread executing the interrupt, it's asynchronous, right? The same applies to an in-kernel pic.


Alex

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