Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC v2 04/11] tcg: comment on which functions have to be called with tb_lock held

[Sergey Fedorov]

On 05/04/16 18:32, Alex Bennée wrote:
> From: Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden>
>
> softmmu requires more functions to be thread-safe, because translation
> blocks can be invalidated from e.g. notdirty callbacks.  Probably the
> same holds for user-mode emulation, it's just that no one has ever
> tried to produce a coherent locking there.
>
> This patch will guide the introduction of more tb_lock and tb_unlock
> calls for system emulation.
>
> Note that after this patch some (most) of the mentioned functions are
> still called outside tb_lock/tb_unlock.  The next one will rectify this.
>
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden>
> Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <address@hidden>
(snip)
> diff --git a/include/qom/cpu.h b/include/qom/cpu.h
> index 6931db9..13eeaae 100644
> --- a/include/qom/cpu.h
> +++ b/include/qom/cpu.h
> @@ -306,7 +306,10 @@ struct CPUState {
>  
>      void *env_ptr; /* CPUArchState */
>      struct TranslationBlock *current_tb;
> +
> +    /* Writes protected by tb_lock, reads not thread-safe  */
>      struct TranslationBlock *tb_jmp_cache[TB_JMP_CACHE_SIZE];

What does "reads not thread-safe" mean? Where does it get read outside
of either actually held tb_lock or promised in a comment added by this
patch?

> +
>      struct GDBRegisterState *gdb_regs;
>      int gdb_num_regs;
>      int gdb_num_g_regs;
> diff --git a/tcg/tcg.h b/tcg/tcg.h
> index ea4ff02..a46d17c 100644
> --- a/tcg/tcg.h
> +++ b/tcg/tcg.h
> @@ -609,6 +609,7 @@ static inline bool tcg_op_buf_full(void)
>  
>  /* pool based memory allocation */
>  
> +/* tb_lock must be held for tcg_malloc_internal. */

How far are we ready to go in commenting such functions? The functions
can be divided into three categories:
 * extern
 * static, called only from another one function (for better code
structuring)
 * static, called from multiple other functions (for encapsulation of
common code)

I think we should decide how to comment locking requirements and follow
this consistently.

Concerning this particular case, I think there's no much point in making
tcg_malloc_internal() and tcg_malloc() externally visible and commenting
locking requirement for them. We'd better have a separate header file
under include/ for external TCG interface declarations and use this one
as internal only in tcg/.

>  void *tcg_malloc_internal(TCGContext *s, int size);
>  void tcg_pool_reset(TCGContext *s);
>  void tcg_pool_delete(TCGContext *s);
> @@ -617,6 +618,7 @@ void tb_lock(void);
>  void tb_unlock(void);
>  void tb_lock_reset(void);
>  
> +/* Called with tb_lock held.  */
>  static inline void *tcg_malloc(int size)
>  {
>      TCGContext *s = &tcg_ctx;
> diff --git a/translate-all.c b/translate-all.c
> index d923008..a7ff5e7 100644
> --- a/translate-all.c
> +++ b/translate-all.c
> @@ -248,7 +248,9 @@ static int encode_search(TranslationBlock *tb, uint8_t 
> *block)
>      return p - block;
>  }
>  
> -/* The cpu state corresponding to 'searched_pc' is restored.  */
> +/* The cpu state corresponding to 'searched_pc' is restored.
> + * Called with tb_lock held.
> + */
>  static int cpu_restore_state_from_tb(CPUState *cpu, TranslationBlock *tb,
>                                       uintptr_t searched_pc)
>  {
> @@ -306,8 +308,10 @@ bool cpu_restore_state(CPUState *cpu, uintptr_t retaddr)

cpu_restore_state_from_tb() called right here also requires tb_lock().

>          if (tb->cflags & CF_NOCACHE) {
>              /* one-shot translation, invalidate it immediately */
>              cpu->current_tb = NULL;
> +            tb_lock();
>              tb_phys_invalidate(tb, -1);
>              tb_free(tb);
> +            tb_unlock();
>          }
>          return true;
>      }
> @@ -399,6 +403,7 @@ static void page_init(void)
>  }
>  
>  /* If alloc=1:
> + * Called with tb_lock held for system emulation.
>   * Called with mmap_lock held for user-mode emulation.

There's a number of functions where their comment states that tb_lock
should be held for system emulation but mmap_lock for user-mode
emulation. BTW, what is the purpose of mmap_lock? And how it is related
to tb_lock?

>   */
>  static PageDesc *page_find_alloc(tb_page_addr_t index, int alloc)
(snip)
> @@ -1429,7 +1446,9 @@ void tb_invalidate_phys_page_fast(tb_page_addr_t start, 
> int len)
>      }
>      if (!p->code_bitmap &&
>          ++p->code_write_count >= SMC_BITMAP_USE_THRESHOLD) {
> -        /* build code bitmap */
> +        /* build code bitmap.  FIXME: writes should be protected by
> +         * tb_lock, reads by tb_lock or RCU.
> +         */

Probably, page_find() called earlier in this function requires tb_lock
held as well as tb_invalidate_phys_page_range() which can be called
later. Maybe tb_invalidate_phys_page_fast() is a good candidate to be
always called with tb_lock held.

>          build_page_bitmap(p);
>      }
>      if (p->code_bitmap) {
(snip)

A list of candidates (as of rth/tcg-next) to also have such a comment
includes:

    tb_find_physical()
    tb_find_slow()
    tb_hash_remove()
    tb_page_remove()
    tb_remove_from_jmp_list()
    tb_jmp_unlink()
    build_page_bitmap()
    tb_link_page()
    tb_invalidate_phys_range()
    tb_invalidate_phys_page_range()
    page_find()
    invalidate_page_bitmap()
    tb_invalidate_check()
    tb_invalidate_phys_page_fast()
    tb_invalidate_phys_page()
    tb_invalidate_phys_addr()
    cpu_io_recompile()

However, there's no sensible description of what is protected by tb_lock
and mmap_lock. I think we need to have a clear documented description of
the TCG locking scheme in order to be sure we do right things in MTTCG.

Kind regards,
Sergey