From patchwork Wed Jul 1 16:11:53 2020 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Patchwork-Submitter: =?utf-8?q?Alex_Benn=C3=A9e?= X-Patchwork-Id: 11636823 Return-Path: Received: from mail.kernel.org (pdx-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [172.30.200.123]) by pdx-korg-patchwork-2.web.codeaurora.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2AD3860D for ; Wed, 1 Jul 2020 16:17:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lists.gnu.org (lists.gnu.org [209.51.188.17]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 00618207BB for ; Wed, 1 Jul 2020 16:17:36 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: mail.kernel.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (2048-bit key) header.d=linaro.org header.i=@linaro.org header.b="BDPYtGkJ" DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.3.2 mail.kernel.org 00618207BB Authentication-Results: mail.kernel.org; dmarc=fail (p=none dis=none) header.from=linaro.org Authentication-Results: mail.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=qemu-devel-bounces+patchwork-qemu-devel=patchwork.kernel.org@nongnu.org Received: from localhost ([::1]:59494 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jqfQW-0007pY-7o for patchwork-qemu-devel@patchwork.kernel.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2020 12:17:36 -0400 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:40138) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jqfL9-0007HS-IU for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2020 12:12:03 -0400 Received: from mail-wr1-x444.google.com ([2a00:1450:4864:20::444]:40290) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jqfL6-0006Hs-HJ for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2020 12:12:03 -0400 Received: by mail-wr1-x444.google.com with SMTP id h5so24620913wrc.7 for ; Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:12:00 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=linaro.org; s=google; h=from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; bh=RP9yAwjU/wG4S48AsoUmDxtOkxGjYVoWMIdIcMqKXrw=; b=BDPYtGkJ1j5mbkJIMlqSJQs8INrq7ckC4EEAbzOwcw8UTXZqNV/vLn4i4MSSUL8T+N VnMc0wQFL9H4Z/SqzN1WBrD9jVPuKxhhRvOQX8weYo+rCVLZt8nqPX9lHoRusvu1HJzx C63a49vk9bA/6SN0bOyQRiVgmigarKnlqGfodt0qtuWEkBDqK8vcYaExQuZEUZi0t3hT fUE7Lvj8BNNLSqeI7ZfGh117z0bcO9QY6e14iSEKO9SmJvbjwNXnOV69Sce++MSmDcmo uHUaR7FOIj+/J/aHYTX0ZJk+AdIAehr0WErlF0h9hzTvNk/PXRQBb0cqyQHvQ+J8A0ln e3EQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:in-reply-to :references:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; bh=RP9yAwjU/wG4S48AsoUmDxtOkxGjYVoWMIdIcMqKXrw=; b=A0Ntd7Z2JRz6wJzBkQQgqRtWde6m92n6tbx4oWYXL6dAR/UC2gLT3jJ0ze/30RYD+9 E2FjdB+ca5xb5OLb0smHTK8jobxAvC2qDlAFxLpftXO2opEFyKAupAUCPVp5n+6i0j4v viNxS2F1pdy+BtagOI3f9ADh0hS+L5ELfJ0dKJ914+Q+EPjLcaO9iu09hBqs1lWKZ2n0 MjXu35iRa5IE/QuAMpzEIN4C2ikytUjoqUHHNlD3s8MTZ3T7d6iEVI4fjTqvYfQMaWjj 2aEbFmm8m4vLyRNdgybkZvQuMc1DASvekWi1RIdugciaPw8AQWxgyFHChepASdYlmUrk zKyA== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM531cOpcEEdaYM0q6kVlka2zxKlNrQdqCWwx5pE28Ri6lh0EWgUOR OP7MkRNrPXQNCNsB/hAQUVJakA== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJzwbQjfxgBE7jgOvP33JywfSMYnzvWf6tNKzFevf352geuIDrbynmdEKZV2/rE5Un711vnELw== X-Received: by 2002:adf:ce90:: with SMTP id r16mr27050958wrn.408.1593619918874; Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:11:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zen.linaroharston ([51.148.130.216]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id d18sm8261774wrj.8.2020.07.01.09.11.54 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:11:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zen.lan (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zen.linaroharston (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9404E1FF8F; Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:11:53 +0100 (BST) From: =?utf-8?q?Alex_Benn=C3=A9e?= To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Subject: [PATCH v2 3/3] docs/devel: add some notes on tcg-icount for developers Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:11:53 +0100 Message-Id: <20200701161153.30988-4-alex.bennee@linaro.org> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.20.1 In-Reply-To: <20200701161153.30988-1-alex.bennee@linaro.org> References: <20200701161153.30988-1-alex.bennee@linaro.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Received-SPF: pass client-ip=2a00:1450:4864:20::444; envelope-from=alex.bennee@linaro.org; helo=mail-wr1-x444.google.com X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: No matching host in p0f cache. That's all we know. X-Spam_score_int: -20 X-Spam_score: -2.1 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.1 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_EF=-0.1, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=_AUTOLEARN X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: qemu-devel@nongnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: Peter Maydell , Richard Henderson , =?utf-8?q?Alex_Benn=C3=A9?= =?utf-8?q?e?= , Pavel Dovgalyuk , Paolo Bonzini Errors-To: qemu-devel-bounces+patchwork-qemu-devel=patchwork.kernel.org@nongnu.org Sender: "Qemu-devel" This attempts to bring together my understanding of the requirements for icount behaviour into one reference document for our developer notes. Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée Reviewed-by: Richard Henderson Cc: Paolo Bonzini Cc: Pavel Dovgalyuk Cc: Peter Maydell Message-Id: <20200619135844.23307-1-alex.bennee@linaro.org> --- v2 - fix copyright date - it's -> its - drop mentioned of gen_io_end() - remove and correct original conjecture v3 - include link in index --- docs/devel/index.rst | 1 + docs/devel/tcg-icount.rst | 89 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 90 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/devel/tcg-icount.rst diff --git a/docs/devel/index.rst b/docs/devel/index.rst index 4ecaea3643f..ae6eac7c9c6 100644 --- a/docs/devel/index.rst +++ b/docs/devel/index.rst @@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ Contents: decodetree secure-coding-practices tcg + tcg-icount multi-thread-tcg tcg-plugins bitops diff --git a/docs/devel/tcg-icount.rst b/docs/devel/tcg-icount.rst new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..cb51cb34dde --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/devel/tcg-icount.rst @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +.. + Copyright (c) 2020, Linaro Limited + Written by Alex Bennée + + +======================== +TCG Instruction Counting +======================== + +TCG has long supported a feature known as icount which allows for +instruction counting during execution. This should be confused with +cycle accurate emulation - QEMU does not attempt to emulate how long +an instruction would take on real hardware. That is a job for other +more detailed (and slower) tools that simulate the rest of a +micro-architecture. + +This feature is only available for system emulation and is +incompatible with multi-threaded TCG. It can be used to better align +execution time with wall-clock time so a "slow" device doesn't run too +fast on modern hardware. It can also provides for a degree of +deterministic execution and is an essential part of the record/replay +support in QEMU. + +Core Concepts +============= + +At its heart icount is simply a count of executed instructions which +is stored in the TimersState of QEMU's timer sub-system. The number of +executed instructions can then be used to calculate QEMU_CLOCK_VIRTUAL +which represents the amount of elapsed time in the system since +execution started. Depending on the icount mode this may either be a +fixed number of ns per instructions or adjusted as execution continues +to keep wall clock time and virtual time in sync. + +To be able to calculate the number of executed instructions the +translator starts by allocating a budget of instructions to be +executed. The budget of instructions is limited by how long it will be +until the next timer will expire. We store this budget as part of a +vCPU icount_decr field which shared with the machinery for handling +cpu_exit(). The whole field is checked at the start of every +translated block and will cause a return to the outer loop to deal +with whatever caused the exit. + +In the case of icount before the flag is checked we subtract the +number of instructions the translation block would execute. If this +would cause the instruction budget to got negative we exit the main +loop and regenerate a new translation block with exactly the right +number of instructions to take the budget to 0 meaning whatever timer +was due to expire will expire exactly when we exit the main run loop. + +Dealing with MMIO +----------------- + +While we can adjust the instruction budget for known events like timer +expiry we can not do the same for MMIO. Every load/store we execute +might potentially trigger an I/O event at which point we will need an +up to date and accurate reading of the icount number. + +To deal with this case when an I/O access is made we: + + - restore un-executed instructions to the icount budget + - re-compile a single [1]_ instruction block for the current PC + - exit the cpu loop and execute the re-compiled block + +The new block is created with the CF_LAST_IO compile flag which +ensures the final instruction translation starts with a call to +gen_io_start() so we don't enter a perpetual loop constantly +recompiling a single instruction block. For translators using the +common translator_loop this is done automatically. + +.. [1] sometimes two instructions if dealing with delay slots + +Other I/O operations +-------------------- + +MMIO isn't the only type of operation for which we might need a +correct and accurate clock. IO port instructions and accesses to +system registers are the common examples here. These instructions have +to be handled by the individual translators which have the knowledge +of which operations are I/O operations. + +.. warning:: Any instruction that eventually causes an access to + QEMU_CLOCK_VIRTUAL needs to be preceded by a + gen_io_start() and must also be the last instruction + translated in the block. + + + +