Re: [PATCH 4.14] x86/pae: use 64 bit atomic xchg function in native_ptep_get_and_clear

From: Greg KH
Date: Thu Sep 13 2018 - 13:17:42 EST


On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 11:56:11AM -0400, Jason Andryuk wrote:
> From: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx>
>
> commit b2d7a075a1ccef2fb321d595802190c8e9b39004 upstream
>
> Using only 32-bit writes for the pte will result in an intermediate
> L1TF vulnerable PTE. When running as a Xen PV guest this will at once
> switch the guest to shadow mode resulting in a loss of performance.
>
> Use arch_atomic64_xchg() instead which will perform the requested
> operation atomically with all 64 bits.
>
> Some performance considerations according to:
>
> https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/managed/ad/dc/Intel-Xeon-Scalable-Processor-throughput-latency.pdf
>
> The main number should be the latency, as there is no tight loop around
> native_ptep_get_and_clear().
>
> "lock cmpxchg8b" has a latency of 20 cycles, while "lock xchg" (with a
> memory operand) isn't mentioned in that document. "lock xadd" (with xadd
> having 3 cycles less latency than xchg) has a latency of 11, so we can
> assume a latency of 14 for "lock xchg".
>
> Signed-off-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>
> Tested-by: Jason Andryuk <jandryuk@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Atomic operations gained an arch_ prefix in commit
> 8bf705d130396e69c04cd8e6e010244ad2ce71f4
> s/arch_atomic64_xchg/atomic64_xchg/ for backport.
> Signed-off-by: Jason Andryuk <jandryuk@xxxxxxxxx>

Thanks for the fix, I've now queued it up everywhere and will push out
-rc2 versions of this.

greg k-h