Re: [PATCH v14 11/13] x86/mm: do targeted broadcast flushing from tlbbatch code

[Dave Hansen]

On 3/4/25 03:52, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 03, 2025 at 01:47:42PM -0800, Dave Hansen wrote:
...
> IOW, this:
> 
> /* Flush all mappings for a given PCID, not including globals. */
> static inline void __invlpgb_flush_single_pcid_nosync(unsigned long pcid)
> {
>         __invlpgb(0, pcid, 0, 1, 0, INVLPGB_PCID);
>         cpu_set_tlbsync(true);
> }
> 
> Right?

Yep, that works.

Optimizing out the writes like the old code did is certainly a good
thought. But I suspect the cacheline is hot the majority of the time.

>>>  static void broadcast_tlb_flush(struct flush_tlb_info *info)
>>>  {
>>>  	bool pmd = info->stride_shift == PMD_SHIFT;
>>> @@ -790,6 +821,8 @@ void switch_mm_irqs_off(struct mm_struct *unused, struct mm_struct *next,
>>>  	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING))
>>>  		WARN_ON_ONCE(!irqs_disabled());
>>>  
>>> +	tlbsync();
>>
>> This one is in dire need of comments.
> 
> Maybe this:
> 
> diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c b/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
> index 08672350536f..b97249ffff1f 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
> @@ -822,6 +822,9 @@ void switch_mm_irqs_off(struct mm_struct *unused, struct mm_struct *next,
>         if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING))
>                 WARN_ON_ONCE(!irqs_disabled());
>  
> +       /*
> +        * Finish any remote TLB flushes pending from this CPU:
> +        */
>         tlbsync();

That's a prototypical "what" comment and not "why", though. It makes a
lot of sense that any flushes that the old task did should complete
before a new gets activated. But I honestly can't think of a _specific_
problem that it causes.

I don't doubt that this does _some_ good, but I just don't know what
good it does. ;)