Mailing List Archive

Don't force a masterclock update when a vCPU synchronizes to the current
TSC generation, e.g. when userspace hotplugs a pre-created vCPU into the
VM. Unnecessarily updating the masterclock is undesirable as it can cause
kvmclock's time to jump, which is particularly painful on systems with a
stable TSC as kvmclock _should_ be fully reliable on such systems.

The unexpected time jumps are due to differences in the TSC=>nanoseconds
conversion algorithms between kvmclock and the host's CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW
(the pvclock algorithm is inherently lossy). When updating the
masterclock, KVM refreshes the "base", i.e. moves the elapsed time since
the last update from the kvmclock/pvclock algorithm to the
CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW algorithm. Synchronizing kvmclock with
CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW is the lesser of evils when the TSC is unstable, but
adds no real value when the TSC is stable.

Prior to commit 7f187922ddf6 ("KVM: x86: update masterclock values on TSC
writes"), KVM did NOT force an update when synchronizing a vCPU to the
current generation.

commit 7f187922ddf6b67f2999a76dcb71663097b75497
Author: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
Date: Tue Nov 4 21:30:44 2014 -0200

KVM: x86: update masterclock values on TSC writes

When the guest writes to the TSC, the masterclock TSC copy must be
updated as well along with the TSC_OFFSET update, otherwise a negative
tsc_timestamp is calculated at kvm_guest_time_update.

Once "if (!vcpus_matched && ka->use_master_clock)" is simplified to
"if (ka->use_master_clock)", the corresponding "if (!ka->use_master_clock)"
becomes redundant, so remove the do_request boolean and collapse
everything into a single condition.

Before that, KVM only re-synced the masterclock if the masterclock was
enabled or disabled Note, at the time of the above commit, VMX
synchronized TSC on *guest* writes to MSR_IA32_TSC:

case MSR_IA32_TSC:
kvm_write_tsc(vcpu, msr_info);
break;

which is why the changelog specifically says "guest writes", but the bug
that was being fixed wasn't unique to guest write, i.e. a TSC write from
the host would suffer the same problem.

So even though KVM stopped synchronizing on guest writes as of commit
0c899c25d754 ("KVM: x86: do not attempt TSC synchronization on guest
writes"), simply reverting commit 7f187922ddf6 is not an option. Figuring
out how a negative tsc_timestamp could be computed requires a bit more
sleuthing.

In kvm_write_tsc() (at the time), except for KVM's "less than 1 second"
hack, KVM snapshotted the vCPU's current TSC *and* the current time in
nanoseconds, where kvm->arch.cur_tsc_nsec is the current host kernel time
in nanoseconds:

ns = get_kernel_ns();

...

if (usdiff < USEC_PER_SEC &&
vcpu->arch.virtual_tsc_khz == kvm->arch.last_tsc_khz) {
...
} else {
/*
* We split periods of matched TSC writes into generations.
* For each generation, we track the original measured
* nanosecond time, offset, and write, so if TSCs are in
* sync, we can match exact offset, and if not, we can match
* exact software computation in compute_guest_tsc()
*
* These values are tracked in kvm->arch.cur_xxx variables.
*/
kvm->arch.cur_tsc_generation++;
kvm->arch.cur_tsc_nsec = ns;
kvm->arch.cur_tsc_write = data;
kvm->arch.cur_tsc_offset = offset;
matched = false;
pr_debug("kvm: new tsc generation %llu, clock %llu\n",
kvm->arch.cur_tsc_generation, data);
}

...

/* Keep track of which generation this VCPU has synchronized to */
vcpu->arch.this_tsc_generation = kvm->arch.cur_tsc_generation;
vcpu->arch.this_tsc_nsec = kvm->arch.cur_tsc_nsec;
vcpu->arch.this_tsc_write = kvm->arch.cur_tsc_write;

Note that the above creates a new generation and sets "matched" to false!
But because kvm_track_tsc_matching() looks for matched+1, i.e. doesn't
require the vCPU that creates the new generation to match itself, KVM
would immediately compute vcpus_matched as true for VMs with a single vCPU.
As a result, KVM would skip the masterlock update, even though a new TSC
generation was created:

vcpus_matched = (ka->nr_vcpus_matched_tsc + 1 ==
atomic_read(&vcpu->kvm->online_vcpus));

if (vcpus_matched && gtod->clock.vclock_mode == VCLOCK_TSC)
if (!ka->use_master_clock)
do_request = 1;

if (!vcpus_matched && ka->use_master_clock)
do_request = 1;

if (do_request)
kvm_make_request(KVM_REQ_MASTERCLOCK_UPDATE, vcpu);

On hardware without TSC scaling support, vcpu->tsc_catchup is set to true
if the guest TSC frequency is faster than the host TSC frequency, even if
the TSC is otherwise stable. And for that mode, kvm_guest_time_update(),
by way of compute_guest_tsc(), uses vcpu->arch.this_tsc_nsec, a.k.a. the
kernel time at the last TSC write, to compute the guest TSC relative to
kernel time:

static u64 compute_guest_tsc(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, s64 kernel_ns)
{
u64 tsc = pvclock_scale_delta(kernel_ns-vcpu->arch.this_tsc_nsec,
vcpu->arch.virtual_tsc_mult,
vcpu->arch.virtual_tsc_shift);
tsc += vcpu->arch.this_tsc_write;
return tsc;
}

Except the "kernel_ns" passed to compute_guest_tsc() isn't the current
kernel time, it's the masterclock snapshot!

spin_lock(&ka->pvclock_gtod_sync_lock);
use_master_clock = ka->use_master_clock;
if (use_master_clock) {
host_tsc = ka->master_cycle_now;
kernel_ns = ka->master_kernel_ns;
}
spin_unlock(&ka->pvclock_gtod_sync_lock);

if (vcpu->tsc_catchup) {
u64 tsc = compute_guest_tsc(v, kernel_ns);
if (tsc > tsc_timestamp) {
adjust_tsc_offset_guest(v, tsc - tsc_timestamp);
tsc_timestamp = tsc;
}
}

And so when KVM skips the masterclock update after a TSC write, i.e. after
a new TSC generation is started, the "kernel_ns-vcpu->arch.this_tsc_nsec"
is *guaranteed* to generate a negative value, because this_tsc_nsec was
captured after ka->master_kernel_ns.

Forcing a masterclock update essentially fudged around that problem, but
in a heavy handed way that introduced undesirable side effects, i.e.
unnecessarily forces a masterclock update when a new vCPU joins the party
via hotplug.

Note, KVM forces masterclock updates in other weird ways that are also
likely unnecessary, e.g. when establishing a new Xen shared info page and
when userspace creates a brand new vCPU. But the Xen thing is firmly a
separate mess, and there are no known userspace VMMs that utilize kvmclock
*and* create new vCPUs after the VM is up and running. I.e. the other
issues are future problems.

Reported-by: Dongli Zhang <dongli.zhang@oracle.com>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230926230649.67852-1-dongli.zhang@oracle.com
Fixes: 7f187922ddf6 ("KVM: x86: update masterclock values on TSC writes")
Cc: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
---
arch/x86/kvm/x86.c | 29 ++++++++++++++++-------------
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
index 530d4bc2259b..61bdb6c1d000 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
@@ -2510,26 +2510,29 @@ static inline int gtod_is_based_on_tsc(int mode)
}
#endif

-static void kvm_track_tsc_matching(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
+static void kvm_track_tsc_matching(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, bool new_generation)
{
#ifdef CONFIG_X86_64
- bool vcpus_matched;
struct kvm_arch *ka = &vcpu->kvm->arch;
struct pvclock_gtod_data *gtod = &pvclock_gtod_data;

- vcpus_matched = (ka->nr_vcpus_matched_tsc + 1 ==
- atomic_read(&vcpu->kvm->online_vcpus));
+ /*
+ * To use the masterclock, the host clocksource must be based on TSC
+ * and all vCPUs must have matching TSCs. Note, the count for matching
+ * vCPUs doesn't include the reference vCPU, hence "+1".
+ */
+ bool use_master_clock = (ka->nr_vcpus_matched_tsc + 1 ==
+ atomic_read(&vcpu->kvm->online_vcpus)) &&
+ gtod_is_based_on_tsc(gtod->clock.vclock_mode);

/*
- * Once the masterclock is enabled, always perform request in
- * order to update it.
- *
- * In order to enable masterclock, the host clocksource must be TSC
- * and the vcpus need to have matched TSCs. When that happens,
- * perform request to enable masterclock.
+ * Request a masterclock update if the masterclock needs to be toggled
+ * on/off, or when starting a new generation and the masterclock is
+ * enabled (compute_guest_tsc() requires the masterclock snapshot to be
+ * taken _after_ the new generation is created).
*/
- if (ka->use_master_clock ||
- (gtod_is_based_on_tsc(gtod->clock.vclock_mode) && vcpus_matched))
+ if ((ka->use_master_clock && new_generation) ||
+ (ka->use_master_clock != use_master_clock))
kvm_make_request(KVM_REQ_MASTERCLOCK_UPDATE, vcpu);

trace_kvm_track_tsc(vcpu->vcpu_id, ka->nr_vcpus_matched_tsc,
@@ -2706,7 +2709,7 @@ static void __kvm_synchronize_tsc(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 offset, u64 tsc,
vcpu->arch.this_tsc_nsec = kvm->arch.cur_tsc_nsec;
vcpu->arch.this_tsc_write = kvm->arch.cur_tsc_write;

- kvm_track_tsc_matching(vcpu);
+ kvm_track_tsc_matching(vcpu, !matched);
}

static void kvm_synchronize_tsc(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 *user_value)

base-commit: 437bba5ad2bba00c2056c896753a32edf80860cc
--
2.42.0.655.g421f12c284-goog