Re: "KVM: x86/mmu: Overhaul TDP MMU zapping and flushing" breaks SVM on Hyper-V

From: Jeremi Piotrowski
Date: Tue Feb 14 2023 - 15:27:36 EST




On 13/02/2023 20:56, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 8:12 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> My reading of the spec[1] is that HV_X64_NESTED_ENLIGHTENED_TLB will cause
>>> svm_flush_tlb_current to behave (in Intel parlance) as an INVVPID rather
>>> than an INVEPT.
>>
>> Oh! Good catch! Yeah, that'll be a problem.
>>
>>> So svm_flush_tlb_current has to be changed to also add a
>>> call to HvCallFlushGuestPhysicalAddressSpace. I'm not sure if that's a good
>>> idea though.
>>
>> That's not strictly necessary, e.g. flushes from kvm_invalidate_pcid() and
>> kvm_post_set_cr4() don't need to effect a full flush. I believe the virtual
>> address flush is also sufficient for avic_activate_vmcb(). Nested (from KVM's
>> perspective, i.e. running L3) can just be mutually exclusive with
>> HV_X64_NESTED_ENLIGHTENED_TLB.
>>
>> That just leaves kvm_mmu_new_pgd()'s force_flush_and_sync_on_reuse and the
>> aforementioned kvm_mmu_load().
>>
>> That said, the above cases where a virtual address flush is sufficient are
>> rare operations when using NPT, so adding a new KVM_REQ_TLB_FLUSH_ROOT or
>> whatever probably isn't worth doing.
>>
>>> First, that's a TLB shootdown rather than just a local thing;
>>> flush_tlb_current is supposed to be relatively cheap, and there would be a
>>> lot of them because of the unconditional calls to
>>> nested_svm_transition_tlb_flush on vmentry/vmexit.
>>
>> This isn't a nested scenario for KVM though.
>
> Yes, but svm_flush_tlb_current() *is* also used in nested scenarios so
> it's like you said below---you would have to disable enlightened TLB
> when EFER.SVME=1 or something like that.
>
>>> Depending on the performance results of adding the hypercall to
>>> svm_flush_tlb_current, the fix could indeed be to just disable usage of
>>> HV_X64_NESTED_ENLIGHTENED_TLB.
>>
>> Minus making nested SVM (L3) mutually exclusive, I believe this will do the trick:
>>
>> + /* blah blah blah */
>> + hv_flush_tlb_current(vcpu);
>> +
>
> Yes, it's either this or disabling the feature.
>
> Paolo

Combining the two sub-threads: both of the suggestions:

a) adding a hyperv_flush_guest_mapping(__pa(root->spt) after kvm_tdp_mmu_get_vcpu_root_hpa's call to tdp_mmu_alloc_sp()
b) adding a hyperv_flush_guest_mapping(vcpu->arch.mmu->root.hpa) to svm_flush_tlb_current()

appear to work in my test case (L2 vm startup until panic due to missing rootfs).

But in both these cases (and also when I completely disable HV_X64_NESTED_ENLIGHTENED_TLB)
the runtime of an iteration of the test is noticeably longer compared to tdp_mmu=0.

So in terms of performance the ranking is (fastest to slowest):
1. tdp_mmu=0 + enlightened TLB
2. tdp_mmu=0 + no enlightened TLB
3. tdp_mmu=1 (enlightened TLB makes minimal difference)