RE: [Xen-devel] Fast inter-VM signaling using monitor/mwait

[Ian Pratt <Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The mwait instruction is privileged.  So I added a new hypercall that
> wraps access to the mwait instruction.  Thus, my code has a Xen
> component (the new hypercall) and a guest kernel component (code for
> executing the hypercall and for turning off/on the timer interrupts
> around the hypercall).  For this code to be merged into Xen, it would
> need to add security checks and check whether the processor supports
> such a feature.

I seem to recall that some newer CPUs have an mwait instruction accessible from 
ring3, using a different opcode -- you might want to check this out.

How do you deal with atomicity of the monitor and mwait? i.e. how do you stop 
the hypervisor pre-empting the VM and using monitor for its own purposes or 
letting another guest use it?

Have you thought about HVM guests as well as PV? 

Best,
Ian

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