Re: [PATCH 4/7] KVM: MMU: don't mark pte notrap if it's just synctransient

From: Xiao Guangrong
Date: Fri Jun 11 2010 - 22:41:54 EST




Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 09:31:38PM +0800, Xiao Guangrong wrote:
>> If the sync-sp just sync transient, don't mark its pte notrap
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Xiao Guangrong <xiaoguangrong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> ---
>> arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h | 2 +-
>> arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c | 11 ++++-------
>> arch/x86/kvm/paging_tmpl.h | 5 +++--
>> 3 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
>
> Xiao,
>
> Can you explain the reasoning for this?
>

Marcelo,

In the kvm_sync_page_transient() path, the sp is keep unsync and sp->gfn is not
write protected, we can't set 'spte == shadow_notrap_nonpresent_pte' if the
'gpte.p == 0' in this case.

It's because if 'gpte.p == 0', when guest change the gpte's mapping, it's no need
to flush tlb(p == 0 means the mapping is not in tlb), if we set spte to
'shadow_notrap_nonpresent_pte', we will miss the chance to update the mapping, also
a incorrect #PF will pass to guest directly, may cause guest crash.

And, this is the reasoning we do mmu_convert_notrap() in kvm_sync_page_transient()
before, this patch just avoid this unnecessary workload. :-)

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/