Re: [Xen-devel] How can Xen trigger a context switch in an HVM guest domain?

["James (song wei)" <jsong@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Could you add a timer when watch the changes of  CR3 to prevent one task
exhaust too long cpu time without changing CR3.

- James (Song Wei)


XiaYubin wrote:
> 
> Hi, George,
> 
> Thank you for your reply. Actually, I'm looking for a generic
> mechanism of cooperative scheduling. The independence of  guest OS can
> make such mechanism more convincing and practical, just like the
> balloon driver does.
> 
> Maybe you are wondering why I asked such a wired question, let me
> describe it with more details. My current work is based on "Task-aware
> VM scheduling", which is published on VEE'09. By monitoring CR3
> changing at VMM level, Xen can get information of tasks' CPU
> consumption to identify CPU hogs and I/O tasks. Therefore, the
> task-aware mechanism offers a more fine-grained scheduler than the
> original VCPU-level scheduler, as a VCPU may run CPU hogs and I/O
> tasks in a mixed style.
> 
> Imagine there are n VMs. One of them, named mix-VM, runs two tasks:
> cpuhog and iotask (network). The other VMs, named CPU-VM, run just
> cpuhog. All VMs are using PV driver ( GPLPV driver for Windows).
> 
> Here's what supposed to happen when iotask receiving an network
> packet: The NIC raises an IRQ, passes to Xen, then domain-0 sends an
> inter-domain event to mix-VM, which is likely to be in run-queue. Xen
> then schedules it to run immediately and set its state to
> preempting-state. Right after that, the mix-VM *should* schedules
> iotask to process the incoming packet, and then schedules cpuhog after
> processing. When the CR3 is changing to cpuhog, Xen knows that the
> mix-VM has finished I/O processing (here we assume that the priority
> of cpuhog is usually lower than iotask in most OS), and schedules the
> mix-VM out to finish its preempting-state. Therefore, the mix-VM can
> preempt other VMs to process I/O ASAP, while making the preempting
> time as short as possible to keep fairness. The point is: cpuhog
> should not run in preempting-state.
> 
> However, a problem arises when the mix-VM sending packets. When iotask
> sends an amount of data (using TCP protocol), it will block and wait
> to be waked up after guest kernel sending all the data, which may be
> split into thousands of TCP packets. The mix-VM will receives an ACK
> packet every time it sending a packet, which makes it enter
> preempting-state. Note that at this moment, the CR3 of mix-VM is
> cpuhog's (as the only running process). After the guest kernel
> processing the ACK packet and sending next packet, it switches to user
> mode, which means the cpuhog gets to run in preempting-state. The
> point is: as there is no CR3-changing, Xen has no way to run.
> 
> One way is to add a hook at user/kernel mode switching, then Xen can
> catch the moment when cpuhog gets to run. However, this way costs too
> much. Another way is to force a VM to schedule when it entering
> preempting-state. Therefore, it will trap to Xen when CR3 is changed,
> and Xen can finish its preempting-state when it schedules cpuhog to
> run. That's why I want to trigger guest context switch from Xen. I
> don't really care *which* process it will switch to, I just want to
> get Xen a chance to run. The point is: is there a better/simpler way
> to solve this problem?
> 
> Hope I described the problem clearly. And would you please show more
> details about the thought of "reschedule event channel"? Thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> 
> 

-- 
View this message in context: 
http://old.nabble.com/How-can-Xen-trigger-a-context-switch-in-an-HVM-guest-domain--tp26141418p26156633.html
Sent from the Xen - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel