On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 05:26:22PM +0300, Gleb Natapov wrote: > On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 09:53:26AM -0300, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 02:15:10PM +0300, Gleb Natapov wrote: > > > On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 04:00:24PM -0300, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > > > On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 12:20:32PM +0300, Gleb Natapov wrote: > > > > > CCing Marcelo, > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 02:50:44PM +0800, Tang Chen wrote: > > > > > > Hi Gleb, > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for the quick reply. Please see below. > > > > > > > > > > > > On 06/18/2014 02:12 PM, Gleb Natapov wrote: > > > > > > >On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 01:50:00PM +0800, Tang Chen wrote: > > > > > > >>[Questions] > > > > > > >>And by the way, would you guys please answer the following questions for me ? > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>1. What's the ept identity pagetable for ? Only one page is enough ? > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>2. Is the ept identity pagetable only used in realmode ? > > > > > > >> Can we free it once the guest is up (vcpu in protect mode)? > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>3. Now, ept identity pagetable is allocated in qemu userspace. > > > > > > >> Can we allocate it in kernel space ? > > > > > > >What would be the benefit? > > > > > > > > > > > > I think the benefit is we can hot-remove the host memory a kvm guest > > > > > > is using. > > > > > > > > > > > > For now, only memory in ZONE_MOVABLE can be migrated/hot-removed. And the > > > > > > kernel > > > > > > will never use ZONE_MOVABLE memory. So if we can allocate these two pages in > > > > > > kernel space, we can pin them without any trouble. When doing memory > > > > > > hot-remove, > > > > > > the kernel will not try to migrate these two pages. > > > > > But we can do that by other means, no? The patch you've sent for instance. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>4. If I want to migrate these two pages, what do you think is the best way ? > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >I answered most of those here: http://www.mail-archive.com/kvm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg103718.html > > > > > > > > > > > > I'm sorry I must missed this email. > > > > > > > > > > > > Seeing your advice, we can unpin these two pages and repin them in the next > > > > > > EPT violation. > > > > > > So about this problem, which solution would you prefer, allocate these two > > > > > > pages in kernel > > > > > > space, or migrate them before memory hot-remove ? > > > > > > > > > > > > I think the first solution is simpler. But I'm not quite sure if there is > > > > > > any other pages > > > > > > pinned in memory. If we have the same problem with other kvm pages, I think > > > > > > it is better to > > > > > > solve it in the second way. > > > > > > > > > > > > What do you think ? > > > > > Remove pinning is preferable. In fact looks like for identity pagetable > > > > > it should be trivial, just don't pin. APIC access page is a little bit > > > > > more complicated since its physical address needs to be tracked to be > > > > > updated in VMCS. > > > > > > > > Yes, and there are new users of page pinning as well soon (see PEBS > > > > threads on kvm-devel). > > > > > > > > Was thinking of notifiers scheme. Perhaps: > > > > > > > > ->begin_page_unpin(struct page *page) > > > > - Remove any possible access to page. > > > > > > > > ->end_page_unpin(struct page *page) > > > > - Reinstantiate any possible access to page. > > > > > > > > For KVM: > > > > > > > > ->begin_page_unpin() > > > > - Remove APIC-access page address from VMCS. > > > > or > > > > - Remove spte translation to pinned page. > > > > > > > > - Put vcpu in state where no VM-entries are allowed. > > > > > > > > ->end_page_unpin() > > > > - Setup APIC-access page, ... > > > > - Allow vcpu to VM-entry. > > > > > > > I believe that to handle identity page and APIC access page we do not > > > need any of those. > > > We can use mmu notifiers to track when page begins > > > to be moved and we can find new page location on EPT violation. > > > > Does page migration hook via mmu notifiers? I don't think so. > > > Both identity page and APIC access page are userspace pages which will > have to be unmap from process address space during migration. At this point > mmu notifiers will be called. Right. > > It won't even attempt page migration because the page count is > > increased (would have to confirm though). Tang? > > > Of course, we should not pin. > > > The problem with identity page is this: its location is written into the > > guest CR3. So you cannot allow it (the page which the guest CR3 points > > to) to be reused before you remove the reference. > > > > Where is the guarantee there will be an EPT violation, allowing a vcpu > > to execute with guest CR3 pointing to page with random data? > > > A guest's physical address is written into CR3 (0xfffbc000 usually), > not a physical address of an identity page directly. When a guest will > try to use CR3 KVM will get EPT violation and shadow page code will find > a page that backs guest's address 0xfffbc000 and will map it into EPT > table. This is what happens on a first vmentry after vcpu creation. Right. > > Same with the APIC access page. > APIC page is always mapped into guest's APIC base address 0xfee00000. > The way it works is that when vCPU accesses page at 0xfee00000 the access > is translated to APIC access page physical address. CPU sees that access > is for APIC page and generates APIC access exit instead of memory access. > If address 0xfee00000 is not mapped by EPT then EPT violation exit will > be generated instead, EPT mapping will be instantiated, access retired > by a guest and this time will generate APIC access exit. Right, confused with the other APIC page which the CPU writes (the vAPIC page) to. > > > > Because allocating APIC access page from distant NUMA node can > > > > be a performance problem, i believe. > > > I do not think this is the case. APIC access page is never written to, > > > and in fact SDM advice to share it between all vcpus. > > > > Right. > > > > But the point is not so much relevant as this should be handled for > > PEBS pages which would be interesting to force to non-movable zones. > > > IIRC your shadow page pinning patch series support flushing of ptes > by mmu notifier by forcing MMU reload and, as a result, faulting in of > pinned pages during next entry. Your patch series does not pin pages > by elevating their page count. No but PEBS series does and its required to stop swap-out of the page. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html