Re: [V6][PATCH 4/6] x86, nmi: add in logic to handle multiple eventsand unknown NMIs

From: Avi Kivity
Date: Sun Oct 02 2011 - 06:08:09 EST


On 09/28/2011 03:37 PM, Don Zickus wrote:
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:31:40PM +0200, Robert Richter wrote:
> On 23.09.11 15:17:13, Don Zickus wrote:
> > @@ -89,6 +89,15 @@ static int notrace __kprobes nmi_handle(unsigned int type, struct pt_regs *regs)
> >
> > handled += a->handler(type, regs);
> >
> > + /*
> > + * Optimization: only loop once if this is not a
> > + * back-to-back NMI. The idea is nothing is dropped
> > + * on the first NMI, only on the second of a back-to-back
> > + * NMI. No need to waste cycles going through all the
> > + * handlers.
> > + */
> > + if (!b2b&& handled)
> > + break;
>
> I don't think we can leave this in. As said, there are cases that 2
> nmis trigger but the handler is called only once. Only the first would
> be handled then, and the second get lost cause there is no 2nd nmi
> call.

Right. Avi, Jeremy what was your objection that needed this optimization
in the first place?


First, iterating over all NMI sources is going to be slow, and a lot more so in a guest. This reduces the performance of perf.

Second, I wanted to use NMIs as a way of waking up a vcpu sleeping with interrupts disabled (in the context of Jeremy's paravirt spinlock patches). Looks like we'll have to use paravirtualization for that.

--
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function

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