Re: [PATCH v3] KVM: x86: Use fast path for Xen timer delivery

[Sean Christopherson]

On Tue, Feb 06, 2024, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Tue, 2024-02-06 at 18:58 -0800, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 06, 2024, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2024-02-06 at 10:41 -0800, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > This has an obvious-in-hindsight recursive deadlock bug.  If KVM actually needs
> > > > to inject a timer IRQ, and the fast path fails, i.e. the gpc is invalid,
> > > > kvm_xen_set_evtchn() will attempt to acquire xen.xen_lock, which is already held
> > > 
> > > Hm, right. In fact, kvm_xen_set_evtchn() shouldn't actually *need* the
> > > xen_lock in an ideal world; it's only taking it in order to work around
> > > the fact that the gfn_to_pfn_cache doesn't have its *own* self-
> > > sufficient locking. I have patches for that...
> > > 
> > > I think the *simplest* of the "patches for that" approaches is just to
> > > use the gpc->refresh_lock to cover all activate, refresh and deactivate
> > > calls. I was waiting for Paul's series to land before sending that one,
> > > but I'll work on it today, and double-check my belief that we can then
> > > just drop xen_lock from kvm_xen_set_evtchn().
> > 
> > While I definitely want to get rid of arch.xen.xen_lock, I don't want to address
> > the deadlock by relying on adding more locking to the gpc code.  I want a teeny
> > tiny patch that is easy to review and backport.  Y'all are *proably* the only
> > folks that care about Xen emulation, but even so, that's not a valid reason for
> > taking a roundabout way to fixing a deadlock.
> 
> I strongly disagree. I get that you're reticent about fixing the gpc
> locking, but what I'm proposing is absolutely *not* a 'roundabout way
> to fixing a deadlock'. The kvm_xen_set_evtchn() function shouldn't
> *need* that lock; it's only taking it because of the underlying problem
> with the gpc itself, which needs its caller to do its locking for it.
> 
> The solution is not to do further gymnastics with the xen_lock.

I agree that's the long term solution, but I am not entirely confident that a big
overhaul is 6.9 material at this point.  Squeezing an overhaul into 6.8 (and if
we're being nitpicky, backporting to 6.7) is out of the question.