Re: [PATCH v9 05/11] KVM: x86/mmu: Rename spte_has_volatile_bits() to spte_needs_atomic_write()

[Sean Christopherson]

On Tue, Feb 04, 2025, James Houghton wrote:
> spte_has_volatile_bits() is now a misnomer, as the an SPTE can have its
> Accessed bit set or cleared without the mmu_lock held, but the state of
> the Accessed bit is not checked in spte_has_volatile_bits().
> Even if a caller uses spte_needs_atomic_write(), Accessed bit
> information may still be lost, but that is already tolerated, as the TLB
> is not invalidated after the Accessed bit is cleared.
> 
> Signed-off-by: James Houghton <jthoughton@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---

...

> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.h b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.h
> index 59746854c0af..4c290ae9a02a 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/spte.h
> @@ -519,7 +519,7 @@ static inline u64 get_mmio_spte_generation(u64 spte)
>  	return gen;
>  }
>  
> -bool spte_has_volatile_bits(u64 spte);
> +bool spte_needs_atomic_write(u64 spte);
>  
>  bool make_spte(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct kvm_mmu_page *sp,
>  	       const struct kvm_memory_slot *slot,
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/tdp_iter.h b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/tdp_iter.h
> index 05e9d678aac9..b54123163efc 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/tdp_iter.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/tdp_iter.h
> @@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ static inline bool kvm_tdp_mmu_spte_need_atomic_write(u64 old_spte, int level)
>  {
>  	return is_shadow_present_pte(old_spte) &&
>  	       is_last_spte(old_spte, level) &&
> -	       spte_has_volatile_bits(old_spte);
> +	       spte_needs_atomic_write(old_spte);

Unless you object, I'll change this to spte_needs_atomic_update(), and tweak
kvm_tdp_mmu_spte_need_atomic_write() accordingly.  "write" was a bad choice by
me.  It's not just the store/write that needs to be atomic, it's the entire
read-modify-write.  E.g. KVM needs to preserve the existing value, but for many
flows, it's even more important that KVM's snapshot of the old SPTE is accurate.

>  }
>  
>  static inline u64 kvm_tdp_mmu_write_spte(tdp_ptep_t sptep, u64 old_spte,
> -- 
> 2.48.1.362.g079036d154-goog
>