Re: [PATCH 3/3] mm/mmu_gather: send tlb_remove_table_smp_sync IPI only to CPUs in kernel mode

[Marcelo Tosatti]

On Wed, Apr 05, 2023 at 09:54:57PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 05, 2023 at 04:43:14PM -0300, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> 
> > Two points:
> > 
> > 1) For a virtualized system, the overhead is not only of executing the
> > IPI but:
> > 
> > 	VM-exit
> > 	run VM-exit code in host
> > 	handle IPI
> > 	run VM-entry code in host
> > 	VM-entry
> 
> I thought we could do IPIs without VMexit these days? 

Yes, IPIs to vCPU (guest context). In this case we can consider
an IPI to the host pCPU (which requires VM-exit from guest context).

> Also virt... /me walks away.
> 
> > 2) Depends on the application and the definition of "occasional".
> > 
> > For certain types of applications (for example PLC software or
> > RAN processing), upon occurrence of an event, it is necessary to
> > complete a certain task in a maximum amount of time (deadline).
> 
> If the application is properly NOHZ_FULL and never does a kernel entry,
> it will never get that IPI. If it is a pile of shit and does kernel
> entries while it pretends to be NOHZ_FULL it gets to keep the pieces and
> no amount of crying will get me to care.

I suppose its common practice to use certain system calls in latency
sensitive applications, for example nanosleep. Some examples:

1) cyclictest		(nanosleep)
2) PLC programs		(nanosleep)

A system call does not necessarily have to take locks, does it ?

Or even if application does system calls, but runs under a VM,
then you are requiring it to never VM-exit.

This reduces the flexibility of developing such applications.