[PATCH] KVM: MMU: optimize for set_spte

From: Xiao Guangrong
Date: Mon Dec 03 2012 - 18:17:10 EST


There are two cases we need to adjust page size in set_spte:
1): the one is other vcpu creates new sp in the window between mapping_level()
and acquiring mmu-lock.
2): the another case is the new sp is created by itself (page-fault path) when
guest uses the target gfn as its page table.

In current code, set_spte drop the spte and emulate the access for these case,
it works not good:
- for the case 1, it may destroy the mapping established by other vcpu, and
do expensive instruction emulation.
- for the case 2, it may emulate the access even if the guest is accessing
the page which not used as page table. There is a example, 0~2M is used as
huge page in guest, in this huge page, only page 3 used as page table, then
guest read/writes on other pages can cause instruction emulation.

Both of these cases can be fixed by allowing guest to retry the access, it
will refault, then we can establish the mapping by using small page

Signed-off-by: Xiao Guangrong <xiaoguangrong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c | 16 ++++++++++++----
1 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c
index b875a9e..01d7c2a 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu.c
@@ -2382,12 +2382,20 @@ static int set_spte(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 *sptep,
|| (!vcpu->arch.mmu.direct_map && write_fault
&& !is_write_protection(vcpu) && !user_fault)) {

+ /*
+ * There are two cases:
+ * - the one is other vcpu creates new sp in the window
+ * between mapping_level() and acquiring mmu-lock.
+ * - the another case is the new sp is created by itself
+ * (page-fault path) when guest uses the target gfn as
+ * its page table.
+ * Both of these cases can be fixed by allowing guest to
+ * retry the access, it will refault, then we can establish
+ * the mapping by using small page.
+ */
if (level > PT_PAGE_TABLE_LEVEL &&
- has_wrprotected_page(vcpu->kvm, gfn, level)) {
- ret = 1;
- drop_spte(vcpu->kvm, sptep);
+ has_wrprotected_page(vcpu->kvm, gfn, level))
goto done;
- }

spte |= PT_WRITABLE_MASK | SPTE_MMU_WRITEABLE;

--
1.7.7.6

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