Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH for-4.5] xen/arm: Fix virtual timer on ARMv8 Model

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2014-11-27 at 18:02 +0000, Julien Grall wrote:
> state at the GIC level. This would also avoid masking the output signal
> and requires specific handling in the guest OS.

"which requires"?

It doesn't seem quite right to me otherwise, since context switching the
virq state *removes* the need to have the guest do anything other than
what it would do on native.

Assuming this is what you meant I propose (fixing some grammar etc as I
go):

xen/arm: Handle platforms with edge-triggered virtual timer

Some platforms (such as the ARMv8 model) use an edge-triggered interrupt
for the virtual timer. Even if the timer output signal is masked in the
context switch, the GIC will keep track that of any interrupts raised
while IRQs are disabled. As soon as IRQs are re-enabled, the virtual
interrupt timer will be injected to Xen.

If an idle vVCPU was scheduled next then the interrupt handler doesn't
expect to the receive the IRQ and will crash:

(XEN)    [<0000000000228388>] _spin_lock_irqsave+0x28/0x94 (PC)
(XEN)    [<0000000000228380>] _spin_lock_irqsave+0x20/0x94 (LR)
(XEN)    [<0000000000250510>] vgic_vcpu_inject_irq+0x40/0x1b0
(XEN)    [<000000000024bcd0>] vtimer_interrupt+0x4c/0x54
(XEN)    [<0000000000247010>] do_IRQ+0x1a4/0x220
(XEN)    [<0000000000244864>] gic_interrupt+0x50/0xec
(XEN)    [<000000000024fbac>] do_trap_irq+0x20/0x2c
(XEN)    [<0000000000255240>] hyp_irq+0x5c/0x60
(XEN)    [<0000000000241084>] context_switch+0xb8/0xc4
(XEN)    [<000000000022482c>] schedule+0x684/0x6d0
(XEN)    [<000000000022785c>] __do_softirq+0xcc/0xe8
(XEN)    [<00000000002278d4>] do_softirq+0x14/0x1c
(XEN)    [<0000000000240fac>] idle_loop+0x134/0x154
(XEN)    [<000000000024c160>] start_secondary+0x14c/0x15c
(XEN)    [<0000000000000001>] 0000000000000001

The proper solution is to context switch the virtual interrupt state at
the GIC level. This would also avoid masking the output signal which
requires specific handling in the guest OS and more complex code in Xen
to deal with EOIs, and so is desirable for that reason too. 

Sadly, this solution requires some refactoring which would not be
suitable for a freeze exception for the Xen 4.5 release.

For now implement a temporary solution which ignores the virtual timer
interrupt when the idle VCPU is running.


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