ARM: KVM: Yield CPU when vcpu executes a WFE

Marc Zyngier · chazy · commit 58d5ec8f8ee3 · 2013-10-17T15:26:50.000-07:00
On an (even slightly) oversubscribed system, spinlocks are quickly
becoming a bottleneck, as some vcpus are spinning, waiting for a
lock to be released, while the vcpu holding the lock may not be
running at all.

This creates contention, and the observed slowdown is 40x for
hackbench. No, this isn't a typo.

The solution is to trap blocking WFEs and tell KVM that we're
now spinning. This ensures that other vpus will get a scheduling
boost, allowing the lock to be released more quickly. Also, using
CONFIG_HAVE_KVM_CPU_RELAX_INTERCEPT slightly improves the performance
when the VM is severely overcommited.

Quick test to estimate the performance: hackbench 1 process 1000

2xA15 host (baseline):	1.843s

2xA15 guest w/o patch:	2.083s
4xA15 guest w/o patch:	80.212s
8xA15 guest w/o patch:	Could not be bothered to find out

2xA15 guest w/ patch:	2.102s
4xA15 guest w/ patch:	3.205s
8xA15 guest w/ patch:	6.887s

So we go from a 40x degradation to 1.5x in the 2x overcommit case,
which is vaguely more acceptable.

Signed-off-by: Marc Zyngier &lt;marc.zyngier@arm.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoffer Dall &lt;christoffer.dall@linaro.org&gt;
diff --git a/arch/arm/include/asm/kvm_arm.h b/arch/arm/include/asm/kvm_arm.h
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@
  */
 #define HCR_GUEST_MASK (HCR_TSC | HCR_TSW | HCR_TWI | HCR_VM | HCR_BSU_IS | \
 			HCR_FB | HCR_TAC | HCR_AMO | HCR_IMO | HCR_FMO | \
-			HCR_SWIO | HCR_TIDCP)
+			HCR_TWE | HCR_SWIO | HCR_TIDCP)
 #define HCR_VIRT_EXCP_MASK (HCR_VA | HCR_VI | HCR_VF)
 
 /* System Control Register (SCTLR) bits */
@@ -208,6 +208,8 @@
 #define HSR_EC_DABT	(0x24)
 #define HSR_EC_DABT_HYP	(0x25)
 
+#define HSR_WFI_IS_WFE		(1U << 0)
+
 #define HSR_HVC_IMM_MASK	((1UL << 16) - 1)
 
 #define HSR_DABT_S1PTW		(1U << 7)
diff --git a/arch/arm/kvm/Kconfig b/arch/arm/kvm/Kconfig
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ config KVM
 	bool "Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) support"
 	select PREEMPT_NOTIFIERS
 	select ANON_INODES
+	select HAVE_KVM_CPU_RELAX_INTERCEPT
 	select KVM_MMIO
 	select KVM_ARM_HOST
 	depends on ARM_VIRT_EXT && ARM_LPAE
diff --git a/arch/arm/kvm/handle_exit.c b/arch/arm/kvm/handle_exit.c
@@ -84,7 +84,11 @@ static int handle_dabt_hyp(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct kvm_run *run)
 static int kvm_handle_wfi(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct kvm_run *run)
 {
 	trace_kvm_wfi(*vcpu_pc(vcpu));
-	kvm_vcpu_block(vcpu);
+	if (kvm_vcpu_get_hsr(vcpu) & HSR_WFI_IS_WFE)
+		kvm_vcpu_on_spin(vcpu);
+	else
+		kvm_vcpu_block(vcpu);
+
 	return 1;
 }
 

Original file line number	Diff line number	Diff line change
`@@ -84,7 +84,11 @@ static int handle_dabt_hyp(struct kvm_vcpu vcpu, struct kvm_run run)`
`84`	`84`	`static int kvm_handle_wfi(struct kvm_vcpu vcpu, struct kvm_run run)`
`85`	`85`	`{`
`86`	`86`	`trace_kvm_wfi(*vcpu_pc(vcpu));`
`87`		`- kvm_vcpu_block(vcpu);`
	`87`	`+ if (kvm_vcpu_get_hsr(vcpu) & HSR_WFI_IS_WFE)`
	`88`	`+ kvm_vcpu_on_spin(vcpu);`
	`89`	`+ else`
	`90`	`+ kvm_vcpu_block(vcpu);`
	`91`	`+`
`88`	`92`	`return 1;`
`89`	`93`	`}`
`90`	`94`