Re: meaning and use of IOMMU_FLUSHF_added

[Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

On 18.08.2021 16:15, Paul Durrant wrote:
> On 18/08/2021 13:09, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> On 18.08.2021 12:51, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>> back at the time I did already question your intended meaning of
>>> this flag. I notice that there's presently no consumer of it being
>>> set (apart from yielding non-zero flush_flags). I'm afraid this
>>> model makes accumulation of flush flags not work properly: With
>>> both flags set and more than a single page altered, it is
>>> impossible to tell apart whether two present PTEs were altered, or
>>> a non-present and a present one.
>>>
>>> VT-d's flushing needs to know the distinction; it may in fact be
>>> necessary to issue two flushes (or a single "heavier" one) when
>>> both non-present and present entries got transitioned to present
>>> in one go.
>>
>> No two (or "heavier") flush looks to be needed upon further reading.
>> I did derive this from our setting of "did" to zero in that case,
>> but that looks to be wrong in the first place - it's correct only
>> for context cache entry flushes. I'll make a(nother) patch ...
> 
> Yes, the intention of the flag was simply to allow a 'lighter' flush in 
> the case there are no modified entries as part of the accumulation. If 
> it is impossible to tell the difference then I guess it's not useful.

Actually things can remain as they are, I think. The problem really
was the flushing bug (patch sent earlier today): If it was necessary
to flush previously present entries with their actual did but not-
present ones with did 0, the flushing logic would have had a need to
know. With that bug fixed (and hence with flushing only needing a
yes/no indicator), all is fine as is (in this regard).

Jan