Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753497Ab3JBJLQ (ORCPT ); Wed, 2 Oct 2013 05:11:16 -0400 Received: from cantor2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:36740 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752992Ab3JBJLM convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Wed, 2 Oct 2013 05:11:12 -0400 Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] KVM: PPC: Book3S: Add support for hwrng found on some powernv systems Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1278) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Alexander Graf In-Reply-To: <1380704789.645.57.camel@pasglop> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2013 11:11:06 +0200 Cc: Paolo Bonzini , Paul Mackerras , Gleb Natapov , Michael Ellerman , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mpm@selenic.com, herbert@gondor.hengli.com.au, linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org, kvm-ppc@vger.kernel.org, tytso@mit.edu Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Message-Id: <668E4650-BC22-4CBF-A282-E7875DF29DB6@suse.de> References: <1380177066-3835-1-git-send-email-michael@ellerman.id.au> <1380177066-3835-3-git-send-email-michael@ellerman.id.au> <5243F933.7000907@redhat.com> <20131001083426.GB27484@concordia> <20131001083908.GA17294@redhat.com> <1380620338.645.22.camel@pasglop> <524AAFAA.3010801@redhat.com> <20131002050940.GA25363@drongo> <524BDD73.3020106@redhat.com> <1380704789.645.57.camel@pasglop> To: Benjamin Herrenschmidt X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1278) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1704 Lines: 38 On 02.10.2013, at 11:06, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote: > On Wed, 2013-10-02 at 10:46 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote: > >> >> Thanks. Any chance you can give some numbers of a kernel hypercall and >> a userspace hypercall on Power, so we have actual data? For example a >> hypercall that returns H_PARAMETER as soon as possible. > > I don't have (yet) numbers at hand but we have basically 3 places where > we can handle hypercalls: > > - Kernel real mode. This is where most of our MMU stuff goes for > example unless it needs to trigger a page fault in Linux. This is > executed with translation disabled and the MMU still in guest context. > This is the fastest path since we don't take out the other threads nor > perform any expensive context change. This is where we put the > "accelerated" H_RANDOM as well. > > - Kernel virtual mode. That's a full exit, so all threads are out and > MMU switched back to host Linux. Things like vhost MMIO emulation goes > there, page faults, etc... > > - Qemu. This adds the round trip to userspace on top of the above. Right, and the difference for the patch in question is really whether we handle in in kernel virtual mode or in QEMU, so the bulk of the overhead (kicking threads out of guest context, switching MMU context, etc) happens either way. So the additional overhead when handling it in QEMU here really boils down to the user space roundtrip (plus another random number read roundtrip). Alex -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/