Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86/mmu: Remove KVM MMU write lock when accessing indirect_shadow_pages

[Sean Christopherson]

On Tue, Jun 06, 2023, Mingwei Zhang wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I don't understand the need for READ_ONCE() here. That implies that
> > > > there is something tricky going on, and I don't think that's the case.
> > >
> > > READ_ONCE() is just telling the compiler not to remove the read. Since
> > > this is reading a global variable,  the compiler might just read a
> > > previous copy if the value has already been read into a local
> > > variable. But that is not the case here...
> > >
> > > Note I see there is another READ_ONCE for
> > > kvm->arch.indirect_shadow_pages, so I am reusing the same thing.
> >
> > I agree with Jim, using READ_ONCE() doesn't make any sense.  I suspect it may have
> > been a misguided attempt to force the memory read to be as close to the write_lock()
> > as possible, e.g. to minimize the chance of a false negative.
> 
> Sean :) Your suggestion is the opposite with Jim. He is suggesting
> doing nothing, but your suggestion is doing way more than READ_ONCE().

Not really.  Jim is asserting that the READ_ONCE() is pointless, and I completely
agree.  I am also saying that I think there is a real memory ordering issue here,
and that it was being papered over by the READ_ONCE() in kvm_mmu_pte_write().

> > So I think this?
> 
> Hmm. I agree with both points above, but below, the change seems too
> heavyweight. smp_wb() is a mfence(), i.e., serializing all
> loads/stores before the instruction. Doing that for every shadow page
> creation and destruction seems a lot.

No, the smp_*b() variants are just compiler barriers on x86.

> In fact, the case that only matters is '0->1' which may potentially
> confuse kvm_mmu_pte_write() when it reads 'indirect_shadow_count', but
> the majority of the cases are 'X => X + 1' where X != 0. So, those
> cases do not matter. So, if we want to add barriers, we only need it
> for 0->1. Maybe creating a new variable and not blocking
> account_shadow() and unaccount_shadow() is a better idea?
> 
> Regardless, the above problem is related to interactions among
> account_shadow(), unaccount_shadow() and kvm_mmu_pte_write(). It has
> nothing to do with the 'reexecute_instruction()', which is what this
> patch is about. So, I think having a READ_ONCE() for
> reexecute_instruction() should be good enough. What do you think.

The reexecute_instruction() case should be fine without any fanciness, it's
nothing more than a heuristic, i.e. neither a false positive nor a false negative
will impact functional correctness, and nothing changes regardless of how many
times the compiler reads the variable outside of mmu_lock.

I was thinking that it would be better to have a single helper to locklessly
access indirect_shadow_pages, but I agree that applying the barriers to
reexecute_instruction() introduces a different kind of confusion.

Want to post a v2 of yours without a READ_ONCE(), and I'll post a separate fix
for the theoretical kvm_mmu_pte_write() race?  And then Paolo can tell me that
there's no race and school me on lockless programming once more ;-)