Re: [PATCH 4/5] KVM: x86: Ensure a full memory barrier is emitted in the VM-Exit path

[Yan Zhao]

On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 12:38:21AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 3/9/24 02:09, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > From: Yan Zhao <yan.y.zhao@xxxxxxxxx>
> > 
> > Ensure a full memory barrier is emitted in the VM-Exit path, as a full
> > barrier is required on Intel CPUs to evict WC buffers.  This will allow
> > unconditionally honoring guest PAT on Intel CPUs that support self-snoop.
> > 
> > As srcu_read_lock() is always called in the VM-Exit path and it internally
> > has a smp_mb(), call smp_mb__after_srcu_read_lock() to avoid adding a
> > second fence and make sure smp_mb() is called without dependency on
> > implementation details of srcu_read_lock().
> 
> Do you really need mfence or is a locked operation enough?  mfence is mb(),
> not smp_mb().
> 
A locked operation should be enough, since the barrier here is to evict
partially filled WC buffers.

"
If the WC buffer is partially filled, the writes may be delayed until the next
occurrence of a serializing event; such as an SFENCE or MFENCE instruction,
CPUID or other serializing instruction, a read or write to uncached memory, an
interrupt occurrence, or an execution of a LOCK instruction (including one with
an XACQUIRE or XRELEASE prefix).
"

> 
> > +	/*
> > +	 * Call this to ensure WC buffers in guest are evicted after each VM
> > +	 * Exit, so that the evicted WC writes can be snooped across all cpus
> > +	 */
> > +	smp_mb__after_srcu_read_lock();
>