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Re: [Xen-devel] Ongoing/future speculative mitigation work


  • To: Tamas K Lengyel <tamas.k.lengyel@xxxxxxxxx>
  • From: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 19:13:01 +0100
  • Autocrypt: addr=andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx; prefer-encrypt=mutual; keydata= xsFNBFLhNn8BEADVhE+Hb8i0GV6mihnnr/uiQQdPF8kUoFzCOPXkf7jQ5sLYeJa0cQi6Penp VtiFYznTairnVsN5J+ujSTIb+OlMSJUWV4opS7WVNnxHbFTPYZVQ3erv7NKc2iVizCRZ2Kxn srM1oPXWRic8BIAdYOKOloF2300SL/bIpeD+x7h3w9B/qez7nOin5NzkxgFoaUeIal12pXSR Q354FKFoy6Vh96gc4VRqte3jw8mPuJQpfws+Pb+swvSf/i1q1+1I4jsRQQh2m6OTADHIqg2E ofTYAEh7R5HfPx0EXoEDMdRjOeKn8+vvkAwhviWXTHlG3R1QkbE5M/oywnZ83udJmi+lxjJ5 YhQ5IzomvJ16H0Bq+TLyVLO/VRksp1VR9HxCzItLNCS8PdpYYz5TC204ViycobYU65WMpzWe LFAGn8jSS25XIpqv0Y9k87dLbctKKA14Ifw2kq5OIVu2FuX+3i446JOa2vpCI9GcjCzi3oHV e00bzYiHMIl0FICrNJU0Kjho8pdo0m2uxkn6SYEpogAy9pnatUlO+erL4LqFUO7GXSdBRbw5 gNt25XTLdSFuZtMxkY3tq8MFss5QnjhehCVPEpE6y9ZjI4XB8ad1G4oBHVGK5LMsvg22PfMJ ISWFSHoF/B5+lHkCKWkFxZ0gZn33ju5n6/FOdEx4B8cMJt+cWwARAQABzSlBbmRyZXcgQ29v cGVyIDxhbmRyZXcuY29vcGVyM0BjaXRyaXguY29tPsLBegQTAQgAJAIbAwULCQgHAwUVCgkI CwUWAgMBAAIeAQIXgAUCWKD95wIZAQAKCRBlw/kGpdefoHbdD/9AIoR3k6fKl+RFiFpyAhvO 59ttDFI7nIAnlYngev2XUR3acFElJATHSDO0ju+hqWqAb8kVijXLops0gOfqt3VPZq9cuHlh IMDquatGLzAadfFx2eQYIYT+FYuMoPZy/aTUazmJIDVxP7L383grjIkn+7tAv+qeDfE+txL4 SAm1UHNvmdfgL2/lcmL3xRh7sub3nJilM93RWX1Pe5LBSDXO45uzCGEdst6uSlzYR/MEr+5Z JQQ32JV64zwvf/aKaagSQSQMYNX9JFgfZ3TKWC1KJQbX5ssoX/5hNLqxMcZV3TN7kU8I3kjK mPec9+1nECOjjJSO/h4P0sBZyIUGfguwzhEeGf4sMCuSEM4xjCnwiBwftR17sr0spYcOpqET ZGcAmyYcNjy6CYadNCnfR40vhhWuCfNCBzWnUW0lFoo12wb0YnzoOLjvfD6OL3JjIUJNOmJy RCsJ5IA/Iz33RhSVRmROu+TztwuThClw63g7+hoyewv7BemKyuU6FTVhjjW+XUWmS/FzknSi dAG+insr0746cTPpSkGl3KAXeWDGJzve7/SBBfyznWCMGaf8E2P1oOdIZRxHgWj0zNr1+ooF /PzgLPiCI4OMUttTlEKChgbUTQ+5o0P080JojqfXwbPAyumbaYcQNiH1/xYbJdOFSiBv9rpt TQTBLzDKXok86M7BTQRS4TZ/ARAAkgqudHsp+hd82UVkvgnlqZjzz2vyrYfz7bkPtXaGb9H4 Rfo7mQsEQavEBdWWjbga6eMnDqtu+FC+qeTGYebToxEyp2lKDSoAsvt8w82tIlP/EbmRbDVn 7bhjBlfRcFjVYw8uVDPptT0TV47vpoCVkTwcyb6OltJrvg/QzV9f07DJswuda1JH3/qvYu0p vjPnYvCq4NsqY2XSdAJ02HrdYPFtNyPEntu1n1KK+gJrstjtw7KsZ4ygXYrsm/oCBiVW/OgU g/XIlGErkrxe4vQvJyVwg6YH653YTX5hLLUEL1NS4TCo47RP+wi6y+TnuAL36UtK/uFyEuPy wwrDVcC4cIFhYSfsO0BumEI65yu7a8aHbGfq2lW251UcoU48Z27ZUUZd2Dr6O/n8poQHbaTd 6bJJSjzGGHZVbRP9UQ3lkmkmc0+XCHmj5WhwNNYjgbbmML7y0fsJT5RgvefAIFfHBg7fTY/i kBEimoUsTEQz+N4hbKwo1hULfVxDJStE4sbPhjbsPCrlXf6W9CxSyQ0qmZ2bXsLQYRj2xqd1 bpA+1o1j2N4/au1R/uSiUFjewJdT/LX1EklKDcQwpk06Af/N7VZtSfEJeRV04unbsKVXWZAk uAJyDDKN99ziC0Wz5kcPyVD1HNf8bgaqGDzrv3TfYjwqayRFcMf7xJaL9xXedMcAEQEAAcLB XwQYAQgACQUCUuE2fwIbDAAKCRBlw/kGpdefoG4XEACD1Qf/er8EA7g23HMxYWd3FXHThrVQ HgiGdk5Yh632vjOm9L4sd/GCEACVQKjsu98e8o3ysitFlznEns5EAAXEbITrgKWXDDUWGYxd pnjj2u+GkVdsOAGk0kxczX6s+VRBhpbBI2PWnOsRJgU2n10PZ3mZD4Xu9kU2IXYmuW+e5KCA vTArRUdCrAtIa1k01sPipPPw6dfxx2e5asy21YOytzxuWFfJTGnVxZZSCyLUO83sh6OZhJkk b9rxL9wPmpN/t2IPaEKoAc0FTQZS36wAMOXkBh24PQ9gaLJvfPKpNzGD8XWR5HHF0NLIJhgg 4ZlEXQ2fVp3XrtocHqhu4UZR4koCijgB8sB7Tb0GCpwK+C4UePdFLfhKyRdSXuvY3AHJd4CP 4JzW0Bzq/WXY3XMOzUTYApGQpnUpdOmuQSfpV9MQO+/jo7r6yPbxT7CwRS5dcQPzUiuHLK9i nvjREdh84qycnx0/6dDroYhp0DFv4udxuAvt1h4wGwTPRQZerSm4xaYegEFusyhbZrI0U9tJ B8WrhBLXDiYlyJT6zOV2yZFuW47VrLsjYnHwn27hmxTC/7tvG3euCklmkn9Sl9IAKFu29RSo d5bD8kMSCYsTqtTfT6W4A3qHGvIDta3ptLYpIAOD2sY3GYq2nf3Bbzx81wZK14JdDDHUX2Rs 6+ahAA==
  • Cc: mpohlack@xxxxxxxxx, Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxx>, Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>, joao.m.martins@xxxxxxxxxx, Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>, Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@xxxxxxxxxx>, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <marmarek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx, uwed@xxxxxxxxx, Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx>, ross.philipson@xxxxxxxxxx, George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxx>, Dario Faggioli <dfaggioli@xxxxxxxx>, Matt Wilson <msw@xxxxxxxxxx>, Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@xxxxxxxxxx>, JGross@xxxxxxxx, sergey.dyasli@xxxxxxxxxx, Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx>, George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Xen-devel <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, mdontu <mdontu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, dwmw@xxxxxxxxxxxx, Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Delivery-date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 18:13:10 +0000
  • List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xenproject.org>
  • Openpgp: preference=signencrypt

On 25/10/18 18:58, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 11:43 AM Andrew Cooper
> <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On 25/10/18 18:35, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
>>> On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 11:02 AM George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxx> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 10/25/2018 05:55 PM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
>>>>> On 24/10/18 16:24, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
>>>>>>> A solution to this issue was proposed, whereby Xen synchronises siblings
>>>>>>> on vmexit/entry, so we are never executing code in two different
>>>>>>> privilege levels.  Getting this working would make it safe to continue
>>>>>>> using hyperthreading even in the presence of L1TF.  Obviously, its going
>>>>>>> to come in perf hit, but compared to disabling hyperthreading, all its
>>>>>>> got to do is beat a 60% perf hit to make it the preferable option for
>>>>>>> making your system L1TF-proof.
>>>>>> Could you shed some light what tests were done where that 60%
>>>>>> performance hit was observed? We have performed intensive stress-tests
>>>>>> to confirm this but according to our findings turning off
>>>>>> hyper-threading is actually improving performance on all machines we
>>>>>> tested thus far.
>>>>> Aggregate inter and intra host disk and network throughput, which is a
>>>>> reasonable approximation of a load of webserver VM's on a single
>>>>> physical server.  Small packet IO was hit worst, as it has a very high
>>>>> vcpu context switch rate between dom0 and domU.  Disabling HT means you
>>>>> have half the number of logical cores to schedule on, which doubles the
>>>>> mean time to next timeslice.
>>>>>
>>>>> In principle, for a fully optimised workload, HT gets you ~30% extra due
>>>>> to increased utilisation of the pipeline functional units.  Some
>>>>> resources are statically partitioned, while some are competitively
>>>>> shared, and its now been well proven that actions on one thread can have
>>>>> a large effect on others.
>>>>>
>>>>> Two arbitrary vcpus are not an optimised workload.  If the perf
>>>>> improvement you get from not competing in the pipeline is greater than
>>>>> the perf loss from Xen's reduced capability to schedule, then disabling
>>>>> HT would be an improvement.  I can certainly believe that this might be
>>>>> the case for Qubes style workloads where you are probably not very
>>>>> overprovisioned, and you probably don't have long running IO and CPU
>>>>> bound tasks in the VMs.
>>>> As another data point, I think it was MSCI who said they always disabled
>>>> hyperthreading, because they also found that their workloads ran slower
>>>> with HT than without.  Presumably they were doing massive number
>>>> crunching, such that each thread was waiting on the ALU a significant
>>>> portion of the time anyway; at which point the superscalar scheduling
>>>> and/or reduction in cache efficiency would have brought performance from
>>>> "no benefit" down to "negative benefit".
>>>>
>>> Thanks for the insights. Indeed, we are primarily concerned with
>>> performance of Qubes-style workloads which may range from
>>> no-oversubscription to heavily oversubscribed. It's not a workload we
>>> can predict or optimize before-hand, so we are looking for a default
>>> that would be 1) safe and 2) performant in the most general case
>>> possible.
>> So long as you've got the XSA-273 patches, you should be able to park
>> and re-reactivate hyperthreads using `xen-hptool cpu-{online,offline} $CPU`.
>>
>> You should be able to effectively change hyperthreading configuration at
>> runtime.  It's not quite the same as changing it in the BIOS, but from a
>> competition of pipeline resources, it should be good enough.
>>
> Thanks, indeed that is a handy tool to have. We often can't disable
> hyperthreading in the BIOS anyway because most BIOS' don't allow you
> to do that when TXT is used.

Hmm - that's an odd restriction.  I don't immediately see why such a
restriction would be necessary.

> That said, with this tool we still
> require some way to determine when to do parking/reactivation of
> hyperthreads. We could certainly park hyperthreads when we see the
> system is being oversubscribed in terms of number of vCPUs being
> active, but for real optimization we would have to understand the
> workloads running within the VMs if I understand correctly?

TBH, I'd perhaps start with an admin control which lets them switch
between the two modes, and some instructions on how/why they might want
to try switching.

Trying to second-guess the best HT setting automatically is most likely
going to be a lost cause.  It will be system specific as to whether the
same workload is better with or without HT.

~Andrew

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