Re: [PATCH v2 08/18] x86/resctrl: Queue mon_event_read() instead of sending an IPI

[Reinette Chatre]

Hi James and Fenghua,

On 3/6/2023 3:32 AM, James Morse wrote:
> On 17/01/2023 18:29, Yu, Fenghua wrote:
>>> x86 is blessed with an abundance of monitors, one per RMID, that can be read
>>> from any CPU in the domain. MPAMs monitors reside in the MMIO MSC, the
>>> number implemented is up to the manufacturer. This means when there are
>>> fewer monitors than needed, they need to be allocated and freed.
>>>
>>> Worse, the domain may be broken up into slices, and the MMIO accesses for
>>> each slice may need performing from different CPUs.
>>>
>>> These two details mean MPAMs monitor code needs to be able to sleep, and IPI
>>> another CPU in the domain to read from a resource that has been sliced.
>>>
>>> mon_event_read() already invokes mon_event_count() via IPI, which means this
>>> isn't possible.
>>>
>>> Change mon_event_read() to schedule mon_event_count() on a remote CPU
>>> and wait, instead of sending an IPI. This function is only used in response to a
>>> user-space filesystem request (not the timing sensitive overflow code).
> 
>> But mkdir mon group needs mon_event_count() to reset RMID state.
>> If mon_event_count() is called much later, the RMID state may be used
>> before it's reset. E.g. prev_msr might be non-0 value. That will cause
>> overflow code failure.
>>
>> Seems this may happen on both x86 and arm64. At least need to make sure
>> RMID state reset happens before it's used.
> 
> On the architecture side, there is a patch from Peter that records the MSR value on the
> architecture side when an RMID is reset/re-allocated. 2a81160d29d6 ("x86/resctrl: Fix
> event counts regression in reused RMIDs")
> 
> For the filesystem, the 'first' value is passed through and handled by the CPU that reads
> the MSR. I don't see what problem any extra delay due to scheduling would cause.
> 

Both the monitor directory creation and the overflow handler rely on the
rdtgroup mutex so I do not see how an overflow code failure could sneak in here.

Reinette