Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2 3/3] xen: use idle vcpus to scrub pages

[Bob Liu <bob.liu@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/23/2014 08:38 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 05:16:33PM +0800, Bob Liu wrote:
>> Hi Jan & Konrad,
>>
>> On 07/01/2014 08:59 PM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>>>> On 01.07.14 at 14:25, <bob.liu@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On 07/01/2014 05:12 PM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 30.06.14 at 15:39, <lliubbo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>> @@ -948,6 +954,7 @@ static void free_heap_pages(
>>>>>>      {
>>>>>>          if ( !tainted )
>>>>>>          {
>>>>>> +            node_need_scrub[node] = 1;
>>>>>>              for ( i = 0; i < (1 << order); i++ )
>>>>>>                  pg[i].count_info |= PGC_need_scrub;
>>>>>>          }
>>>>>
>>>>> Iirc it was more than this single place where you set
>>>>> PGC_need_scrub, and hence where you'd now need to set the
>>>>> other flag too.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm afraid this is the only place where PGC_need_scrub was set.
>>>
>>> Ah, indeed - I misremembered others, they are all tests for the flag.
>>>
>>>> I'm sorry for all of the coding style problems.
>>>>
>>>> By the way is there any script which can be used to check the code
>>>> before submitting? Something like ./scripts/checkpatch.pl under linux.
>>>
>>> No, there isn't. But avoiding (or spotting) hard tabs should be easy
>>> enough, and other things you ought to simply inspect your patch for
>>> - after all that's no different from what reviewers do.
>>>
>>>>>> +    }
>>>>>> +
>>>>>> +    /* free percpu free list */
>>>>>> +    if ( !page_list_empty(local_free_list) )
>>>>>> +    {
>>>>>> +        spin_lock(&heap_lock);
>>>>>> +        page_list_for_each_safe( pg, tmp, local_free_list )
>>>>>> +        {
>>>>>> +            order = PFN_ORDER(pg);
>>>>>> +            page_list_del(pg, local_free_list);
>>>>>> +            for ( i = 0; i < (1 << order); i++ )
>>>>>> +            {
>>>>>> +                pg[i].count_info |= PGC_state_free;
>>>>>> +                pg[i].count_info &= ~PGC_need_scrub;
>>>>>
>>>>> This needs to happen earlier - the scrub flag should be cleared right
>>>>> after scrubbing, and the free flag should imo be set when the page
>>>>> gets freed. That's for two reasons:
>>>>> 1) Hypervisor allocations don't need scrubbed pages, i.e. they can
>>>>> allocate memory regardless of the scrub flag's state.
>>>>
>>>> AFAIR, the reason I set those flags here is to avoid a panic happen.
>>>
>>> That's pretty vague a statement.
>>>
>>>>> 2) You still detain the memory on the local lists from allocation. On a
>>>>> many-node system, the 16Mb per node can certainly sum up (which
>>>>> is not to say that I don't view the 16Mb on a single node as already
>>>>> problematic).
>>>>
>>>> Right, but we can adjust SCRUB_BATCH_ORDER.
>>>> Anyway I'll take a retry as you suggested.
>>>
>>> You should really drop the idea of removing pages temporarily.
>>> All you need to do is make sure a page being allocated and getting
>>> simultaneously scrubbed by another CPU won't get passed to the
>>> caller until the scrubbing finished. In particular it's no problem if
>>> the allocating CPU occasionally ends up scrubbing a page already
>>> being scrubbed elsewhere.
>>>
>>
>> After so many days I haven't make a workable solution if don't remove
>> pages temporarily. The hardest part is iterating the heap free list
>> without holding heap_lock because if holding the lock it might be heavy
>> lock contention.
> 
> Why do you need to hold on the heap_lock?
> 
> I presume that the flag changes need an cmpxchg operation. In which case
> could you add another flag that would be 'PG_scrubbing_now` - and the
> allocator could bypass all of the pages that have said flag (and also
> PG_need_scrub).

That's what I'm struggling with these days.

> 
> If the allocator can't find enough pages to satisfy the demands - it goes
> back in and looks at PG_need_scrub pages and scrubs those.
> 
> In parallel, another thread (threads?) pick the ones that have PG_need_scrub
> and change them to PG_scrubbing_now and scrubs them. When it has
> completed it removes both flags.
> 

But there is still race condition:

A:alloc path                        B:idle scrub path

                                    page = list_entry(&heap_list);

^^^
Delist the page from heap_list
(Can happen any time)

                                    if (PG_need_scrub)
                                        set PG_scrubbing_now
                                    scrub and clear both flags
                                    page = page_list_next(page);
                                           ^^^ Get panic


Another problem Jan pointed out before is if order=20 and being scrubbed
in idle vcpus, alloc path will fail because of the PG_scrubbing_now
flag. This will introduce a long time we have large memory but can't
allocate any page.

>> So do you think it's acceptable if fixed all other concerns about this
>> patch?
>>
>> And there is another idea based on the assumption that only guest
>> allocation need all pages to be scrubbed(It's safe for xen hypervisor to
>> use an un-scrubbed page):
>> 1. set the need_scrub flag in free_heap_pages().
>> 2. alloc pages from heap free list, don't scrub and neither clear the
>> need_scrub flag.
>> 3. When the guest accessing the real memory(machine pages) the first
>> time, page fault should happen. We track this event and before build the
> 
> I think you mean that we can set the EPT (or shadow) all of those 
> PG_need_scrub

No, I mean at the point when setting the EPT or shadow page table entry,
scrub the related machine page if it has the PG_need_scrub flag.

I think in Pod mode the place is in p2m_set_entry(), scrub the mfn
related page if PG_need_scrub before we set up the entry.

> pages to be r/o. And then when the guest access them we would trap in
> the hypervisor and scrub them. However, that means the guest can
> still read those pages without trapping - and that means we might
> be reading sensitive data from pages that came from another guest!
> 
> 
>> right PFN to MFN page table mappings(correct me if it doesn't work as
>> this), at this place scrub the page if the need_scrub flag was set.
>>
>> By this way only guest real used pages are needed scrubbing and the time
>> is scattered.
>> How do you think of this solution?

-- 
Regards,
-Bob

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