Re: [PATCH] arm64: KVM: Save two instructions in __guest_enter()

From: Christoffer Dall
Date: Mon Aug 29 2016 - 14:11:54 EST


On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 08:15:36PM -0500, Shanker Donthineni wrote:
> We are doing an unnecessary stack push/pop operation when restoring
> the guest registers x0-x18 in __guest_enter(). This patch saves the
> two instructions by using x18 as a base register. No need to store
> the vcpu context pointer in stack because it is redundant and not
> being used anywhere, the same information is available in tpidr_el2.
>
> Signed-off-by: Shanker Donthineni <shankerd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------
> 1 file changed, 32 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S
> index ce9e5e5..d2e09a1 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S
> +++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S
> @@ -55,37 +55,32 @@
> */
> ENTRY(__guest_enter)
> // x0: vcpu
> - // x1: host/guest context
> - // x2-x18: clobbered by macros
> + // x1: host context
> + // x2-x17: clobbered by macros
> + // x18: guest context
>
> // Store the host regs
> save_callee_saved_regs x1
>
> - // Preserve vcpu & host_ctxt for use at exit time
> - stp x0, x1, [sp, #-16]!
> + // Preserve the host_ctxt for use at exit time
> + str x1, [sp, #-16]!
>
> - add x1, x0, #VCPU_CONTEXT
> + add x18, x0, #VCPU_CONTEXT
>
> - // Prepare x0-x1 for later restore by pushing them onto the stack
> - ldp x2, x3, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(0)]
> - stp x2, x3, [sp, #-16]!
> + // Restore guest regs x19-x29, lr
> + restore_callee_saved_regs x18

couldn't moving this load here be bad for prefetching?

>
> - // x2-x18
> - ldp x2, x3, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(2)]
> - ldp x4, x5, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(4)]
> - ldp x6, x7, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(6)]
> - ldp x8, x9, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(8)]
> - ldp x10, x11, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(10)]
> - ldp x12, x13, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(12)]
> - ldp x14, x15, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(14)]
> - ldp x16, x17, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(16)]
> - ldr x18, [x1, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(18)]
> -
> - // x19-x29, lr
> - restore_callee_saved_regs x1
> -
> - // Last bits of the 64bit state
> - ldp x0, x1, [sp], #16
> + // Restore guest regs x0-x18
> + ldp x0, x1, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(0)]
> + ldp x2, x3, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(2)]
> + ldp x4, x5, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(4)]
> + ldp x6, x7, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(6)]
> + ldp x8, x9, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(8)]
> + ldp x10, x11, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(10)]
> + ldp x12, x13, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(12)]
> + ldp x14, x15, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(14)]
> + ldp x16, x17, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(16)]
> + ldr x18, [x18, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(18)]
>
> // Do not touch any register after this!
> eret
> @@ -100,6 +95,16 @@ ENTRY(__guest_exit)
>
> add x2, x0, #VCPU_CONTEXT
>
> + // Store the guest regs x19-x29, lr
> + save_callee_saved_regs x2

same question here (although with a different weight as we were already
'jumping back' with the memory address in our store sequence.

If this is a real concern, a better approach would be to override x0
with the vcpu context pointer, do two pairs of load/stores using x2,x3
for the vcpu x0-x3, and then proceed with the rest of the registers.

> +
> + // Retrieve the guest regs x0-x3 from the stack
> + ldp x21, x22, [sp], #16 // x2, x3
> + ldp x19, x20, [sp], #16 // x0, x1
> +
> + // Store the guest regs x0-x18
> + stp x19, x20, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(0)]
> + stp x21, x22, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(2)]
> stp x4, x5, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(4)]
> stp x6, x7, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(6)]
> stp x8, x9, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(8)]
> @@ -109,20 +114,13 @@ ENTRY(__guest_exit)
> stp x16, x17, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(16)]
> str x18, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(18)]
>
> - ldp x6, x7, [sp], #16 // x2, x3
> - ldp x4, x5, [sp], #16 // x0, x1
> + // Restore the host_ctxt from the stack
> + ldr x2, [sp], #16
>
> - stp x4, x5, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(0)]
> - stp x6, x7, [x2, #CPU_XREG_OFFSET(2)]
> -
> - save_callee_saved_regs x2
> -
> - // Restore vcpu & host_ctxt from the stack
> - // (preserving return code in x1)
> - ldp x0, x2, [sp], #16
> // Now restore the host regs
> restore_callee_saved_regs x2
>
> + // Preserving return code (x1)

nit: preserve is a strange word to choose to describe what you do here.

if you want to do what I suggested above, you could change the two
callers to return the return code in x0, and the vcpu pointer in x1 and
then you can save this instruction as well.

> mov x0, x1
> ret
> ENDPROC(__guest_exit)
> --

Thanks,
-Christoffer