Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2 2/3] xen: add hypercall option to temporarily pin a vcpu

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/03/16 09:02, Juergen Gross wrote:
> Some hardware (e.g. Dell studio 1555 laptops) require SMIs to be
> called on physical cpu 0 only. Linux drivers like dcdbas or i8k try
> to achieve this by pinning the running thread to cpu 0, but in Dom0
> this is not enough: the vcpu must be pinned to physical cpu 0 via
> Xen, too.
> 
> Add a stable hypercall option SCHEDOP_pin_temp to the sched_op
> hypercall to achieve this. It is taking a physical cpu number as
> parameter. If pinning is possible (the calling domain has the
> privilege to make the call and the cpu is available in the domain's
> cpupool) the calling vcpu is pinned to the specified cpu. The old
> cpu affinity is saved. To undo the temporary pinning a cpu -1 is
> specified. This will restore the original cpu affinity for the vcpu.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx>
> ---
> V2: - limit operation to hardware domain as suggested by Jan Beulich
>     - some style issues corrected as requested by Jan Beulich
>     - use fixed width types in interface as requested by Jan Beulich
>     - add compat layer checking as requested by Jan Beulich
> ---
>  xen/common/compat/schedule.c |  4 ++
>  xen/common/schedule.c        | 92 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>  xen/include/public/sched.h   | 17 ++++++++
>  xen/include/xlat.lst         |  1 +
>  4 files changed, 109 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/xen/common/compat/schedule.c b/xen/common/compat/schedule.c
> index 812c550..73b0f01 100644
> --- a/xen/common/compat/schedule.c
> +++ b/xen/common/compat/schedule.c
> @@ -10,6 +10,10 @@
>  
>  #define do_sched_op compat_sched_op
>  
> +#define xen_sched_pin_temp sched_pin_temp
> +CHECK_sched_pin_temp;
> +#undef xen_sched_pin_temp
> +
>  #define xen_sched_shutdown sched_shutdown
>  CHECK_sched_shutdown;
>  #undef xen_sched_shutdown
> diff --git a/xen/common/schedule.c b/xen/common/schedule.c
> index b0d4b18..653f852 100644
> --- a/xen/common/schedule.c
> +++ b/xen/common/schedule.c
> @@ -271,6 +271,12 @@ int sched_move_domain(struct domain *d, struct cpupool 
> *c)
>      struct scheduler *old_ops;
>      void *old_domdata;
>  
> +    for_each_vcpu ( d, v )
> +    {
> +        if ( v->affinity_broken )
> +            return -EBUSY;
> +    }
> +
>      domdata = SCHED_OP(c->sched, alloc_domdata, d);
>      if ( domdata == NULL )
>          return -ENOMEM;
> @@ -669,6 +675,14 @@ int cpu_disable_scheduler(unsigned int cpu)
>              if ( cpumask_empty(&online_affinity) &&
>                   cpumask_test_cpu(cpu, v->cpu_hard_affinity) )
>              {
> +                if ( v->affinity_broken )
> +                {
> +                    /* The vcpu is temporarily pinned, can't move it. */
> +                    vcpu_schedule_unlock_irqrestore(lock, flags, v);
> +                    ret = -EBUSY;
> +                    break;
> +                }

Does this mean that if the user closes the laptop lid while one of these
drivers has vcpu0 pinned, that Xen will crash (see
xen/arch/x86/smpboot.c:__cpu_disable())?  Or is it the OS's job to make
sure that all temporary pins are removed before suspending?

Also -- have you actually tested the "cpupool move while pinned"
functionality to make sure it actually works?  There's a weird bit in
cpupool_unassign_cpu_helper() where after calling
cpu_disable_scheduler(cpu), it unconditionally sets the cpu bit in the
cpupool_free_cpus mask, even if it returns an error.  That can't be
right, even for the existing -EAGAIN case, can it?

I see that you have a loop to retry this call several times in the next
patch; but what if it fails every time -- what state is the system in?

And, in general, what happens if the device driver gets mixed up and
forgets to unpin the vcpu?  Is the only recourse to reboot your host (or
deal with the fact that you can't reconfigure your cpupools)?

 -George


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