fadcead00c
Allowing L1 to VMWRITE read-only fields is only beneficial in a double
nesting scenario, e.g. no sane VMM will VMWRITE VM_EXIT_REASON in normal
non-nested operation. Intercepting RO fields means KVM doesn't need to
sync them from the shadow VMCS to vmcs12 when running L2. The obvious
downside is that L1 will VM-Exit more often when running L3, but it's
likely safe to assume most folks would happily sacrifice a bit of L3
performance, which may not even be noticeable in the grande scheme, to
improve L2 performance across the board.
Not intercepting fields tagged read-only also allows for additional
optimizations, e.g. marking GUEST_{CS,SS}_AR_BYTES as SHADOW_FIELD_RO
since those fields are rarely written by a VMMs, but read frequently.
When utilizing a shadow VMCS with asymmetric R/W and R/O bitmaps, fields
that cause VM-Exit on VMWRITE but not VMREAD need to be propagated to
the shadow VMCS during VMWRITE emulation, otherwise a subsequence VMREAD
from L1 will consume a stale value.
Note, KVM currently utilizes asymmetric bitmaps when "VMWRITE any field"
is not exposed to L1, but only so that it can reject the VMWRITE, i.e.
propagating the VMWRITE to the shadow VMCS is a new requirement, not a
bug fix.
Eliminating the copying of RO fields reduces the latency of nested
VM-Entry (copy_shadow_to_vmcs12()) by ~100 cycles (plus 40-50 cycles
if/when the AR_BYTES fields are exposed RO).
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.