Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] x86 fixes for 3.3 impacting distros(v1).

From: Jan Beulich
Date: Thu Jun 28 2012 - 11:37:33 EST


>>> On 28.06.12 at 16:42, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 06/28/2012 07:28 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
>> I also chatted with the core Xen hypervisor folks about adding in the
> context switch code
>> to alter the PAT layout - but they were not keen a about it - and I am not
> sure how much
>> CPU cycles one loses by doing a wrmsr to the PAT register on every guest
> context switch
>> (worst case when on has a pvops kernel and a old-style one - where the WC bit
> would differ)?
>>
>
> And you're comparing that to a bunch of new pvops calls? The discussion
> shouldn't even have started until you had ruled out this solution and
> had data to show it.

That's definitely not an option: Xen itself may be (and is, under
certain circumstances at least) using WC page table entries, so
we can't allow on-the-fly changes to the meaning of the various
indexes.

Jan

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