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[Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retransl
From: |
Alexander Graf |
Subject: |
[Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation |
Date: |
Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:29:28 +0100 |
On 10.01.2011, at 15:23, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 03:20:40PM +0100, Alexander Graf wrote:
>>
>> On 10.01.2011, at 15:15, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 03:07:52PM +0100, Alexander Graf wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 10.01.2011, at 15:00, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 01:13:25PM +0100, Alexander Graf wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 06.01.2011, at 23:12, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have just sent a tcg/arm patch concerning code retranslation. You
>>>>>>> might want to look at the description (copied below), as from a first
>>>>>>> glance ppc, s390 and sparc TCG targets might be affected. If you see
>>>>>>> guest kernel panics, some segmentation fault of qemu or in the guest,
>>>>>>> strange behaviors, that happen randomly and that looks difficult to
>>>>>>> debug it might be the issue.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Aurelien
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> | QEMU uses code retranslation to restore the CPU state when an
>>>>>>> exception
>>>>>>> | happens. For it to work the retranslation must not modify the
>>>>>>> generated
>>>>>>> | code. This is what is currently implemented in ARM TCG.
>>>>>>> |
>>>>>>> | However on CPU that don't have icache/dcache/memory synchronised like
>>>>>>> | ARM, this requirement is stronger and code retranslation must not
>>>>>>> modify
>>>>>>> | the generated code "atomically", as the cache line might be flushed
>>>>>>> | at any moment (interrupt, exception, task switching), even if not
>>>>>>> | triggered by QEMU. The probability for this to happen is very low, and
>>>>>>> | depends on cache size and associativiy, machine load, interrupts, so
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> | symptoms are might happen randomly.
>>>>>>> |
>>>>>>> | This requirement is currently not followed in tcg/arm, for the
>>>>>>> | load/store code, which basically has the following structure:
>>>>>>> | 1) tlb access code is written
>>>>>>> | 2) conditional fast path code is written
>>>>>>> | 3) branch is written with a temporary target
>>>>>>> | 4) slow path code is written
>>>>>>> | 5) branch target is updated
>>>>>>> | The cache lines corresponding to the retranslated code is not flushed
>>>>>>> | after code retranslation as the generated code is supposed to be the
>>>>>>> | same. However if the cache line corresponding to the branch
>>>>>>> instruction
>>>>>>> | is flushed between step 3 and 5, and is not flushed again before the
>>>>>>> | code is executed again, the branch target is wrong. In the guest, the
>>>>>>> | symptoms are MMU page fault at a random addresses, which leads to
>>>>>>> | kernel page fault or segmentation faults.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't see the problem. If you have separate icache from dcache, the
>>>>>> code in question doesn't get executed during the rewrite, so all should
>>>>>> be fine. If you have both combined, the data write should automatically
>>>>>> modify the cache line, so all is great too.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as I understand, this is what happens to the branch target
>>>>> instruction, or at least one possibility:
>>>>>
>>>>> operation | icache | dcache | mem/L2 |
>>>>> ------------------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+
>>>>> tlb access code is written | absent | absent | ok |
>>>>> conditional fast path code is written | absent | absent | ok |
>>>>> branch is written with a temporary target | absent | wrong | ok |
>>>>> cache line is flushed to memory | absent | absent | wrong |
>>>>> slow path code is written | absent | absent | wrong |
>>>>> branch target is updated | absent | ok | wrong |
>>>>> TB is re-executed | wrong | ok | wrong |
>>>>>
>>>>> Note that the issue is real, the patch really fixes the issue on ARM and
>>>>> MIPS. It's not impossible that I don't fully understand it given I can't
>>>>> analyse the cache values at a given time. However, when QEMU crashes
>>>>> because of that, we have seen that the executed code doesn't match what
>>>>> GDB says, and changing the temporary branch value also changes the way
>>>>> QEMU or the guest crash.
>>>>>
>>>>> The problem doesn't happens very often though (for sure less than 1
>>>>> every few millions). The other way to fix it is to issue a cache flush
>>>>> after a code retranslation, however, it is something very costly on some
>>>>> architectures.
>>>>
>>>> I'd guess it only happens when code is overwritten. Only then icache can
>>>> still be stale in that code region. Can't we just invalidate the icache on
>>>> every tb flush? That should also fix the issue I'd guess.
>>>
>>> That's a solution that works (tested). However making sure that the
>>> retranslation doesn't change the code looks better.
>>
>> Yeah, I agree. Temporary retranslation really shouldn't modify existing
>> code. We really do need an icache flush on tb flushes still though as that's
>> a separate issue? Or are these already in?
>>
>
> We already have an icache flush after the first translation. We don't
> have any when the TB is flushed, but I don't think it is something
> necessary. The new TB that will replace it will issue an icache flush
> after it has been translated.
We don't need the flush after the translation if we just flush the whole block
on invalidate. That should be a speedup, no? Flushing the full thing once is
probably faster than lots of small flushes on every TB write.
Also, if there's a flush after the translation, I'm even more puzzled how the
race you describe above can occur.
Alex
- [Qemu-devel] tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Aurelien Jarno, 2011/01/06
- Message not available
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Aurelien Jarno, 2011/01/10
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Alexander Graf, 2011/01/10
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Aurelien Jarno, 2011/01/10
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Alexander Graf, 2011/01/10
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Aurelien Jarno, 2011/01/10
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation,
Alexander Graf <=
- [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Aurelien Jarno, 2011/01/10
- Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Edgar E. Iglesias, 2011/01/10
- Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: tcg/{ppc, s390, sparc}: branch target and code retranslation, Alexander Graf, 2011/01/10