[PATCH 1/5] KVM: rseq: Update rseq when processing NOTIFY_RESUME on xfer to KVM guest
Sean Christopherson
seanjc at google.com
Sat Aug 21 08:26:53 AEST 2021
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> Without the lazy clear scheme, a rseq c.s. would look like:
>
> * init(rseq_cs)
> * cpu = TLS->rseq::cpu_id_start
> * [1] TLS->rseq::rseq_cs = rseq_cs
> * [start_ip] ----------------------------
> * [2] if (cpu != TLS->rseq::cpu_id)
> * goto abort_ip;
> * [3] <last_instruction_in_cs>
> * [post_commit_ip] ----------------------------
> * [4] TLS->rseq::rseq_cs = NULL
>
> But as a fast-path optimization, [4] is not entirely needed because the rseq_cs
> descriptor contains information about the instruction pointer range of the critical
> section. Therefore, userspace can omit [4], but if the kernel never clears it, it
> means that it will have to re-read the rseq_cs descriptor's content each time it
> needs to check it to confirm that it is not nested over a rseq c.s..
>
> So making the kernel lazily clear the rseq_cs pointer is just an optimization which
> ensures that the kernel won't do useless work the next time it needs to check
> rseq_cs, given that it has already validated that the userspace code is currently
> not within the rseq c.s. currently advertised by the rseq_cs field.
Thanks for the explanation, much appreciated!
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