WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

Re: [Xen-devel] TLB flushing in blktap kernel driver?

To: Keir Fraser <Keir.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] TLB flushing in blktap kernel driver?
From: "Stephen C. Tweedie" <sct@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:33:44 +0100
Cc: Andrew Warfield <andrew.warfield@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Julian Chesterfield <jac90@xxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:34:33 -0700
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <C1403B6C.1B5C%Keir.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
References: <C1403B6C.1B5C%Keir.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,

On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 14:30 +0100, Keir Fraser wrote:
> > However, I can't understand right now why we need the tlb flush here.
> > If we're doing any grant table operations between dom0 and domU, then
> > the HV should be doing the tlb flushes for us, shouldn't it?  And mere
> > SMP synchronisation on a ring buffer requires a physical memory barrier,
> > not a TLB synchronisation (and RING_PUSH_REQUESTS already does a wmb.)
> 
> Grant unmapping certainly guarantees to flush TLB entries.

Right.  I can't see why a simple ring buffer poll would *ever* need to
flush tlbs.  I may be missing something, which is why I asked, but it
looks like this was perhaps just intended to be a memory barrier, in
which case the flush call is entirely superfluous (and a significant
performance hit to boot.)

--Stephen



_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>