Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:38:00 -0700 | From | Dave Hansen <> | Subject | Re: PCID and TLB flushes (was: [GIT PULL] kdbus for 4.1-rc1) |
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On 04/28/2015 03:15 PM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote: > On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 01:42:10PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote: >> At some point, I'd like to implement PCID on x86 (if no one beats me >> to it, and this is a low priority for me), which will allow us to skip >> expensive TLB flushes while context switching. I have no idea whether >> ARM can do something similar. > > I talked with Dave about implementing PCID and he thinks that it will be > net loss. TLB entries will live longer and it means we would need to trigger > more IPIs to flash them out when we have to. Cost of IPIs will be higher > than benifit from hot TLB after context switch. > > Do you have different expectations?
Kirill, I think Andy is asking about something different that what you and I talked about. My point to you was that PCIDs can not be used to to replace or in lieu of TLB shootdowns because they *only* make TLB entries live longer.
Their entire purpose is to make things live longer and to reduce the cost of the implicit TLB shootdowns that we do as a part of a context switch.
I'm not sure if it will have a benefit overall. It depends on the increase in shootdown cost vs. the decrease in TLB refill cost at context switch.
I think someone hacked up some code to do it (maybe just internally to Intel), so if anyone is seriously interested in implementing it, let me know and I'll see if I can dig it up.
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