Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 02/14] Nested Virtualization: localevent

[Christoph Egger <Christoph.Egger@xxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 05 August 2010 18:19:14 Keir Fraser wrote:
> I seem to remember we discussed the reason for this a bit some time ago.

Yes, I remember, too.

> It looked to me like you were calling a function that makes sense only on a
> running guest (and a locally currently running guest at that) after the
> guest was dead, during cleanup/teardown. If I'm remembering correctly then
> the fix would be to not do that then. ;-)

I am not sure if I got you. I try to repeat you with my own words:

This localevent patch on its own is pointless. It makes only sense
when a guest (the level 1 guest) runs its own guest, the level 2 guest.
When the level 2 guest was dead, during cleanup/teardown.


I retry to explain:

This localevent patch on its own is pointless, I agree with you in this case.
The patch is needed when the level 1 guest was running a level 2 guest
and get destroyed. During the destroy process Xen may still want to
inject (pending) interrupts/events.
For this reason, nestedhvm_vcpu_destroy() (added in patch 5/14)
does a nestedsvm_vcpu_stgi() to prevent the interrupts/events
from being blocked by hvm_interrupt_blocked() (see patch 9/14)
and level 1 guest remaining in a zombie state.

nestedsvm_vcpu_stgi() calls local_event_delivery_enable() (only on AMD now).
At the time when nestedsvm_vcpu_stgi() is called from 
nestedhvm_vcpu_destroy(), "current" may be an invalid pointer while
the vcpu pointer is valid.
When local_event_delivery_enable() accesses "current" then Xen crashes.
That is why local_event_delivery_enable() needs the vcpu argument.

Christoph



>  -- Keir
>
> On 05/08/2010 16:46, "Keir Fraser" <keir.fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The functions are called local_event_delivery* because they implicitly
> > act on current. They don't need to take a vcpu parameter. If you find you
> > need a vcpu parameter then you are using them, or one of their callers,
> > incorrectly.
> >
> >  -- Keir
> >
> > On 05/08/2010 16:00, "Christoph Egger" <Christoph.Egger@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> Signed-off-by: Christoph Egger <Christoph.Egger@xxxxxxx>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-devel mailing list
> > Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel



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