Re: [Patch v2 2/5] KVM: x86/mmu: Optimize SPTE change flow for clear-dirty-log

[David Matlack]

On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 2:06 PM Ben Gardon <bgardon@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 11:28 AM Vipin Sharma <vipinsh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > +static inline u64 kvm_tdp_mmu_clear_spte_bit(struct tdp_iter *iter, u64 mask)
> > +{
> > +       atomic64_t *sptep;
> > +
> > +       if (kvm_tdp_mmu_spte_has_volatile_bits(iter->old_spte, iter->level)) {
> > +               sptep = (atomic64_t *)rcu_dereference(iter->sptep);
> > +               return (u64)atomic64_fetch_and(~mask, sptep);
> > +       }
> > +
> > +       __kvm_tdp_mmu_write_spte(iter->sptep, iter->old_spte & ~mask);
> > +       return iter->old_spte;
> > +}
> > +
>
> If you do end up sending another version of the series and feel like
> breaking up this patch, you could probably split this part out since
> the change to how we set the SPTE and how we handle that change are
> somewhat independent. I like the switch to atomic64_fetch_and though.
> No idea if it's faster, but I would believe it could be.

The changes are actually dependent. Using the atomic-AND makes it
impossible for KVM to clear a volatile bit that it wasn't intending to
clear, and that is what enables simplifying the SPTE change
propagation.

Instead I would split out the opportunistic cleanup of
@record_dirty_log to a separate patch, since that's dead-code cleanup
and refactoring.