[PATCH] virtio_ring: Fix the stale index in available ring

Gavin Shan gshan at redhat.com
Mon Mar 18 23:54:15 PDT 2024


On 3/19/24 16:10, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 02:09:34AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 02:59:23PM +1000, Gavin Shan wrote:
>>> On 3/19/24 02:59, Will Deacon wrote:
[...]
>>>>> diff --git a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
>>>>> index 49299b1f9ec7..7d852811c912 100644
>>>>> --- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
>>>>> +++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
>>>>> @@ -687,9 +687,15 @@ static inline int virtqueue_add_split(struct virtqueue *_vq,
>>>>>    	avail = vq->split.avail_idx_shadow & (vq->split.vring.num - 1);
>>>>>    	vq->split.vring.avail->ring[avail] = cpu_to_virtio16(_vq->vdev, head);
>>>>> -	/* Descriptors and available array need to be set before we expose the
>>>>> -	 * new available array entries. */
>>>>> -	virtio_wmb(vq->weak_barriers);
>>>>> +	/*
>>>>> +	 * Descriptors and available array need to be set before we expose
>>>>> +	 * the new available array entries. virtio_wmb() should be enough
>>>>> +	 * to ensuere the order theoretically. However, a stronger barrier
>>>>> +	 * is needed by ARM64. Otherwise, the stale data can be observed
>>>>> +	 * by the host (vhost). A stronger barrier should work for other
>>>>> +	 * architectures, but performance loss is expected.
>>>>> +	 */
>>>>> +	virtio_mb(false);
>>>>>    	vq->split.avail_idx_shadow++;
>>>>>    	vq->split.vring.avail->idx = cpu_to_virtio16(_vq->vdev,
>>>>>    						vq->split.avail_idx_shadow);
>>>>
>>>> Replacing a DMB with a DSB is _very_ unlikely to be the correct solution
>>>> here, especially when ordering accesses to coherent memory.
>>>>
>>>> In practice, either the larger timing different from the DSB or the fact
>>>> that you're going from a Store->Store barrier to a full barrier is what
>>>> makes things "work" for you. Have you tried, for example, a DMB SY
>>>> (e.g. via __smb_mb()).
>>>>
>>>> We definitely shouldn't take changes like this without a proper
>>>> explanation of what is going on.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for your comments, Will.
>>>
>>> Yes, DMB should work for us. However, it seems this instruction has issues on
>>> NVidia's grace-hopper. It's hard for me to understand how DMB and DSB works
>>> from hardware level. I agree it's not the solution to replace DMB with DSB
>>> before we fully understand the root cause.
>>>
>>> I tried the possible replacement like below. __smp_mb() can avoid the issue like
>>> __mb() does. __ndelay(10) can avoid the issue, but __ndelay(9) doesn't.
>>>
>>> static inline int virtqueue_add_split(struct virtqueue *_vq, ...)
>>> {
>>>      :
>>>          /* Put entry in available array (but don't update avail->idx until they
>>>           * do sync). */
>>>          avail = vq->split.avail_idx_shadow & (vq->split.vring.num - 1);
>>>          vq->split.vring.avail->ring[avail] = cpu_to_virtio16(_vq->vdev, head);
>>>
>>>          /* Descriptors and available array need to be set before we expose the
>>>           * new available array entries. */
>>>          // Broken: virtio_wmb(vq->weak_barriers);
>>>          // Broken: __dma_mb();
>>>          // Work:   __mb();
>>>          // Work:   __smp_mb();
> 
> Did you try __smp_wmb ? And wmb?
> 

virtio_wmb(false) is equivalent to __smb_wmb(), which is broken.

__wmb() works either. No issue found with it.

>>>          // Work:   __ndelay(100);
>>>          // Work:   __ndelay(10);
>>>          // Broken: __ndelay(9);
>>>
>>>         vq->split.avail_idx_shadow++;
>>>          vq->split.vring.avail->idx = cpu_to_virtio16(_vq->vdev,
>>>                                                  vq->split.avail_idx_shadow);
>>
>> What if you stick __ndelay here?
> 
> And keep virtio_wmb above?
> 

The result has been shared through a separate reply.

>>
>>>          vq->num_added++;
>>>
>>>          pr_debug("Added buffer head %i to %p\n", head, vq);
>>>          END_USE(vq);
>>>          :
>>> }
>>>
>>> I also tried to measure the consumed time for various barrier-relative instructions using
>>> ktime_get_ns() which should have consumed most of the time. __smb_mb() is slower than
>>> __smp_wmb() but faster than __mb()
>>>
>>>      Instruction           Range of used time in ns
>>>      ----------------------------------------------
>>>      __smp_wmb()           [32  1128032]
>>>      __smp_mb()            [32  1160096]
>>>      __mb()                [32  1162496]
>>>

Thanks,
Gavin




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