Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC v2 11/11] tcg: enable thread-per-vCPU

[Sergey Fedorov]

On 27/05/16 18:25, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>
> On 27/05/2016 17:07, Sergey Fedorov wrote:
>>>>>>  1. Make 'cpu->thread_kicked' access atomic
>>>>>>  2. Remove global 'exit_request' and use per-CPU 'exit_request'
>>>>>>  3. Change how 'current_cpu' is set
>>>>>>  4. Reorganize round-robin CPU TCG thread function
>>>>>>  5. Enable 'mmap_lock' for system mode emulation (do we really want 
>>>>>> this?)
>>>> No, I don't think so.
>>>>
>>>>>>  6. Enable 'tb_lock' for system mode emulation
>>>>>>  7. Introduce per-CPU TCG thread function
>>>> At least 2/3/7 must be done at the same time, but I agree that this
>>>> patch could use some splitting. :)
>> Hmm, 2/3 do also change single-threaded CPU loop. I think they should
>> apply separately from 7.
> Reviewed the patch now, and I'm not sure how you can do 2/3 for the
> single-threaded CPU loop.  They could be moved out of cpu_exec and into
> cpus.c (in a separate patch), but you need exit_request and
> tcg_current_cpu to properly kick the single-threaded CPU loop out of
> qemu_tcg_cpu_thread_fn.

Summarizing Paolo and my chat on IRC, we want run_on_cpu() to be served
as soon as possible so that it would not block IO thread for too long.
Removing global 'exit_request' would mean that a run_on_cpu() request
from IO thread wouldn't be served until single-threaded CPU loop
schedules the target CPU. This doesn't seem to be acceptable.

NB: Calling run_on_cpu() for other CPU from the CPU thread would cause a
deadlock in single-threaded round-robin CPU loop.

Thanks,
Sergey