Re: [PATCH v3 01/10] KVM: arm64: Document PV-time interface

From: Steven Price
Date: Wed Aug 28 2019 - 07:23:59 EST


On 27/08/2019 09:44, Christoffer Dall wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 04:36:47PM +0100, Steven Price wrote:
>> Introduce a paravirtualization interface for KVM/arm64 based on the
>> "Arm Paravirtualized Time for Arm-Base Systems" specification DEN 0057A.
>>
>> This only adds the details about "Stolen Time" as the details of "Live
>> Physical Time" have not been fully agreed.
>>
>> User space can specify a reserved area of memory for the guest and
>> inform KVM to populate the memory with information on time that the host
>> kernel has stolen from the guest.
>>
>> A hypercall interface is provided for the guest to interrogate the
>> hypervisor's support for this interface and the location of the shared
>> memory structures.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Steven Price <steven.price@xxxxxxx>
>> ---
>> Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pvtime.txt | 100 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> 1 file changed, 100 insertions(+)
>> create mode 100644 Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pvtime.txt
>>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pvtime.txt b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pvtime.txt
>> new file mode 100644
>> index 000000000000..1ceb118694e7
>> --- /dev/null
>> +++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pvtime.txt
>> @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
>> +Paravirtualized time support for arm64
>> +======================================
>> +
>> +Arm specification DEN0057/A defined a standard for paravirtualised time
>> +support for AArch64 guests:
>> +
>> +https://developer.arm.com/docs/den0057/a
>> +
>> +KVM/arm64 implements the stolen time part of this specification by providing
>> +some hypervisor service calls to support a paravirtualized guest obtaining a
>> +view of the amount of time stolen from its execution.
>> +
>> +Two new SMCCC compatible hypercalls are defined:
>> +
>> +PV_FEATURES 0xC5000020
>> +PV_TIME_ST 0xC5000022
>> +
>> +These are only available in the SMC64/HVC64 calling convention as
>> +paravirtualized time is not available to 32 bit Arm guests. The existence of
>> +the PV_FEATURES hypercall should be probed using the SMCCC 1.1 ARCH_FEATURES
>> +mechanism before calling it.
>> +
>> +PV_FEATURES
>> + Function ID: (uint32) : 0xC5000020
>> + PV_func_id: (uint32) : Either PV_TIME_LPT or PV_TIME_ST
>> + Return value: (int32) : NOT_SUPPORTED (-1) or SUCCESS (0) if the relevant
>> + PV-time feature is supported by the hypervisor.
>> +
>> +PV_TIME_ST
>> + Function ID: (uint32) : 0xC5000022
>> + Return value: (int64) : IPA of the stolen time data structure for this
>> + (V)CPU. On failure:
>> + NOT_SUPPORTED (-1)
>> +
>> +The IPA returned by PV_TIME_ST should be mapped by the guest as normal memory
>> +with inner and outer write back caching attributes, in the inner shareable
>> +domain. A total of 16 bytes from the IPA returned are guaranteed to be
>> +meaningfully filled by the hypervisor (see structure below).
>> +
>> +PV_TIME_ST returns the structure for the calling VCPU.
>> +
>> +Stolen Time
>> +-----------
>> +
>> +The structure pointed to by the PV_TIME_ST hypercall is as follows:
>> +
>> + Field | Byte Length | Byte Offset | Description
>> + ----------- | ----------- | ----------- | --------------------------
>> + Revision | 4 | 0 | Must be 0 for version 0.1
>> + Attributes | 4 | 4 | Must be 0
>> + Stolen time | 8 | 8 | Stolen time in unsigned
>> + | | | nanoseconds indicating how
>> + | | | much time this VCPU thread
>> + | | | was involuntarily not
>> + | | | running on a physical CPU.
>> +
>> +The structure will be updated by the hypervisor prior to scheduling a VCPU. It
>> +will be present within a reserved region of the normal memory given to the
>> +guest. The guest should not attempt to write into this memory. There is a
>> +structure per VCPU of the guest.
>> +
>> +User space interface
>> +====================
>> +
>> +User space can request that KVM provide the paravirtualized time interface to
>> +a guest by creating a KVM_DEV_TYPE_ARM_PV_TIME device, for example:
>> +
>
> I feel it would be more consistent to have the details of this in
> Documentation/virt/kvm/devices/arm-pv-time.txt and refer to this
> document from here.

Fair point - I'll move this lower part of the document and add a reference.

Thanks,

Steve

>> + struct kvm_create_device pvtime_device = {
>> + .type = KVM_DEV_TYPE_ARM_PV_TIME,
>> + .attr = 0,
>> + .flags = 0,
>> + };
>> +
>> + pvtime_fd = ioctl(vm_fd, KVM_CREATE_DEVICE, &pvtime_device);
>> +
>> +Creation of the device should be done after creating the vCPUs of the virtual
>> +machine.
>> +
>> +The IPA of the structures must be given to KVM. This is the base address
>> +of an array of stolen time structures (one for each VCPU). The base address
>> +must be page aligned. The size must be at least 64 * number of VCPUs and be a
>> +multiple of PAGE_SIZE.
>> +
>> +The memory for these structures should be added to the guest in the usual
>> +manner (e.g. using KVM_SET_USER_MEMORY_REGION).
>> +
>> +For example:
>> +
>> + struct kvm_dev_arm_st_region region = {
>> + .gpa = <IPA of guest base address>,
>> + .size = <size in bytes>
>> + };
>> +
>> + struct kvm_device_attr st_base = {
>> + .group = KVM_DEV_ARM_PV_TIME_PADDR,
>> + .attr = KVM_DEV_ARM_PV_TIME_ST,
>> + .addr = (u64)&region
>> + };
>> +
>> + ioctl(pvtime_fd, KVM_SET_DEVICE_ATTR, &st_base);
>> --
>> 2.20.1
>>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Christoffer
>