Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86/mmu: Fix a benign Bitwise vs. Logical OR mixup

[Sean Christopherson]

On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 10:26:30AM -0500, Arvind Sankar wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 02:13:48PM +0000, David Laight wrote:
> > From: Sean Christopherson
> > > Sent: 08 January 2020 00:19
> > > 
> > > Use a Logical OR in __is_rsvd_bits_set() to combine the two reserved bit
> > > checks, which are obviously intended to be logical statements.  Switching
> > > to a Logical OR is functionally a nop, but allows the compiler to better
> > > optimize the checks.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@xxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > >  arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c | 2 +-
> > >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > > 
> > > diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> > > index 7269130ea5e2..72e845709027 100644
> > > --- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> > > +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> > > @@ -3970,7 +3970,7 @@ __is_rsvd_bits_set(struct rsvd_bits_validate *rsvd_check, u64 pte, int level)
> > >  {
> > >  	int bit7 = (pte >> 7) & 1, low6 = pte & 0x3f;
> > > 
> > > -	return (pte & rsvd_check->rsvd_bits_mask[bit7][level-1]) |
> > > +	return (pte & rsvd_check->rsvd_bits_mask[bit7][level-1]) ||
> > >  		((rsvd_check->bad_mt_xwr & (1ull << low6)) != 0);
> > 
> > Are you sure this isn't deliberate?
> > The best code almost certainly comes from also removing the '!= 0'.

The '!= 0' is truly superfluous, removing it doesn't affect code
generation.

> > You also don't want to convert the expression result to zero.
> 
> The function is static inline bool, so it's almost certainly a mistake
> originally. The != 0 is superfluous, but this will get inlined anyway.

Ya, the bitwise-OR was added in commit 25d92081ae2f ("nEPT: Add nEPT
violation/misconfigration support"), and AFAICT it's unintentional.

That being said, I was a bit hasty in stating that a logical-OR allows for
better optimization, sort of.

For FNAME(prefetch_invalid_gpte) and FNAME(walk_addr_generic), which
branch on the result of is_rsvd_bits_set(), the logical-OR is marginally
better.  FNAME(prefetch_invalid_gpte) is what I initially looked at when
saying "yep, that's better!".

But for walk_shadow_page_get_mmio_spte(), because it aggregates the result
in a loop, the bitwise-OR is better in that it eliminates a Jcc.

And all that being said, there are two vastly superior optimizations that
can be made:

  - Reorder the checks in FNAME(prefetch_invalid_gpte) to perform the
    !PRESENT and !ACCESSED checks before checking the reserved bits, as
    they are both more likely to fail and do not require additional memory
    accesses.

  - Rewrite __is_rsvd_bits_set() to make it templated.  The reserved MT
    check is EPT only, i.e. bad_mt_xwr is always 0 for legacy 32/64-bit
    paging.

So, I'll scrap this patch and send a mini series to effect the above
optimizations.

> > 
> > So:
> > 	return (pte & rsvd_check->rsvd_bits_mask[bit7][level-1]) | (rsvd_check->bad_mt_xwr & (1ull << low6));
> > The code then doesn't have any branches to get mispredicted.
> > 
> > 	David
> > 
> > -
> > Registered Address Lakeside, Bramley Road, Mount Farm, Milton Keynes, MK1 1PT, UK
> > Registration No: 1397386 (Wales)
> >