Re: [Xen-devel] [for-4.7] xen/arm: Force broadcast of TLB and instruction cache maintenance instructions

[Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxx>]

(CC Steve and Andre)

Hi Stefano,

On 25/04/16 11:45, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2016, Julien Grall wrote:
> > UP guest usually uses TLB instruction to flush only on the local CPU. The
> > TLB flush won't be broadcasted across all the CPUs within the same
> > innershareable domain.
> >
> > When the vCPU is migrated between different CPUs, it may be rescheduled
> > to a previous CPU where the TLB has not been flushed. The TLB may
> > contain stale entries which will result to translate incorrectly a VA to
> > IPA or even cause TLB conflicts.
> >
> > To avoid a such situation, always set HCR_EL2.FB which will force the
> > broadcast of TLB and instruction cache maintenance instructions.
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxx>
> Well spotted!
>
> Julien, I was wondering whether we could avoid the HCR_FB by manually
> doing a flush in ctxt_switch_from or context_switch. I am suggesting
> this because I have the feeling that enabling HCR_FB would have a
> negative performance impact.
The performance impact will depend on how much the guest makes use of 
local flush instructions.
When HCR.FB is set, the hardware will broadcast the flush (TLBs, 
instruction cache or branch predictor) to all the CPUs in the same 
innershareable domain. I.e any local flush instructions will be upgraded 
to innershareable.
ARM64 Linux kernel is SMP-aware (no possibility to build only for UP), 
most of the flush instructions are innershareable. The local flushes are 
limited to boot (1 flush per CPU) and when the ASID of a task is 
changing. Therefore the impact of setting HCR.FB for ARM64 Linux guest 
would be very limited.
ARM32 Linux kernel can be built SMP-aware or only UP-aware. The former, 
will make a very limited use of those instructions. The latter will 
obviously use only local flush instructions. Therefore, there will be an 
impact to set HCR.FB for UP-aware kernel guest.
I have looked quickly at FreeBSD (both ARM64 and ARM32). SMP-aware 
kernel will mostly make use of innershareable flush instructions. 
UP-aware kernel will only make use of local flush instructions.
However, nothing prevent an SMP-aware kernel to make more often use of 
local flush instructions.
In the case that HCR.FB is not set, Xen would need to:
* Flush all the TLBs for the VMID associated to this domain
* Invalidate all the entries from branch predictors (on for AArch32)
* Invalidate all the entries from the instruction cache
Whilst you suggested to do it at every domain context switch, this is 
only necessary when the vCPU migrates between 2 physical CPUs.
In any case, not setting HCR.FB will have a big impact on any SMP-aware 
Linux/Freebsd kernel as any context switch (or migration) will nuke the 
TLBs, the instruction cache and the branch predictor.
The impact of HCR.FB on UP-aware kernel would need to be benchmarked.
But to be honest, I expect most of the kernels, which run in a guest, to 
be SMP-aware.
So setting HCR.FB seems to be the best solution. We can revisit it 
later, if we notice negative performance impact.
Regards,

--
Julien Grall

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