On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 04:26:16PM +0800, Xiao Guangrong wrote: > Hi Marcelo, > > On 11/13/2012 07:10 AM, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 05:59:26PM +0800, Xiao Guangrong wrote: > >> Do not drop large spte until it can be insteaded by small pages so that > >> the guest can happliy read memory through it > >> > >> The idea is from Avi: > >> | As I mentioned before, write-protecting a large spte is a good idea, > >> | since it moves some work from protect-time to fault-time, so it reduces > >> | jitter. This removes the need for the return value. > >> > >> Signed-off-by: Xiao Guangrong <xiaoguangrong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> --- > >> arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c | 34 +++++++++------------------------- > >> 1 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-) > > > > Its likely that other 4k pages are mapped read-write in the 2mb range > > covered by a read-only 2mb map. Therefore its not entirely useful to > > map read-only. > > > > It needs a page fault to install a pte even if it is the read access. > After the change, the page fault can be avoided. > > > Can you measure an improvement with this change? > > I have a test case to measure the read time which has been attached. > It maps 4k pages at first (dirt-loggged), then switch to large sptes > (stop dirt-logging), at the last, measure the read access time after write > protect sptes. > > Before: 23314111 ns After: 11404197 ns Ok, i'm concerned about cases similar to e49146dce8c3dc6f44 (with shadow), that is: - large page must be destroyed when write protecting due to shadowed page. - with shadow, it does not make sense to write protect large sptes as mentioned earlier. So i wonder why is this part from your patch - if (level > PT_PAGE_TABLE_LEVEL && - has_wrprotected_page(vcpu->kvm, gfn, level)) { - ret = 1; - drop_spte(vcpu->kvm, sptep); - goto done; - } necessary (assuming EPT is in use). -- 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