Re: [PATCH 16/17] TSC reset compensation

[Zachary Amsden]

On 06/16/2010 03:52 AM, Glauber Costa wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 09:34:18PM -1000, Zachary Amsden wrote:
>    
> > Attempt to synchronize TSCs which are reset to the same value.  In the
> > case of a reliable hardware TSC, we can just re-use the same offset, but
> > on non-reliable hardware, we can get closer by adjusting the offset to
> > match the elapsed time.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Zachary Amsden<zamsden@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >   arch/x86/kvm/x86.c |   34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
> >   1 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> > index 8e836e9..cedb71f 100644
> > --- a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> > +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> > @@ -937,14 +937,44 @@ static inline void kvm_request_guest_time_update(struct kvm_vcpu *v)
> >   	set_bit(KVM_REQ_CLOCK_SYNC,&v->requests);
> >   }
> >
> > +static inline int kvm_tsc_reliable(void)
> > +{
> > +	return (boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_CONSTANT_TSC)&&
> > +		boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_NONSTOP_TSC)&&
> > +		!check_tsc_unstable());
> > +}
> > +
> >      
> why can't we re-use vmware TSC_RELIABLE flag?
>    

It's only set for VMware.  Basically, it means "you are running in a 
VMware hypervisor, TSC is reliable".  Which KVM won't ever be, at least, 
not in production use, so it doesn't make that sort of sense here.  
Besides, a system with a reliable TSC can become a system without  a 
reliable TSC : CPU hotplug will always guarantee this.

We could, however, have the guest set the TSC_RELIABLE flag for itself 
if KVM somehow makes that promise (currently, it does not).

Zach
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