Re: [PATCH 19/24] kvm: x86/mmu: Protect tdp_mmu_pages with a lock

[Ben Gardon]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 5:37 AM Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 12/01/21 19:10, Ben Gardon wrote:
> > +      *  May be acquired under the MMU lock in read mode or non-overlapping
> > +      *  with the MMU lock.
> > +      */
> > +     spinlock_t tdp_mmu_pages_lock;
>
> Is this correct?  My understanding is that:
>
> - you can take tdp_mmu_pages_lock from a shared MMU lock critical section
>
> - you don't need to take tdp_mmu_pages_lock from an exclusive MMU lock
> critical section, because you can't be concurrent with a shared critical
> section
>
> - but then, you can't take tdp_mmu_pages_lock outside the MMU lock,
> because you could have
>
>     write_lock(mmu_lock)
>                                       spin_lock(tdp_mmu_pages_lock)
>     do tdp_mmu_pages_lock stuff  !!!  do tdp_mmu_pages_lock stuff
>     write_unlock(mmu_lock)
>                                       spin_unlock(tdp_mmu_pages_lock)
>

You're absolutely right, that would cause a problem. I'll amend the
comment to specify that the lock should only be held under the mmu
lock in read mode.

> Paolo
>