Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 11:50:37 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Roger_Pau_Monn=E9?= <roger.pau@citrix.com> To: Julian Elischer <julian@freebsd.org> Cc: virtualization@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Xen (and others Hypervisors) how do they handle IPIs? Message-ID: <5244036D.7060004@citrix.com> In-Reply-To: <5243927C.9080609@freebsd.org> References: <5242F9B8.9090300@freebsd.org> <5242FB81.4090002@citrix.com> <5243927C.9080609@freebsd.org>
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On 26/09/13 03:48, Julian Elischer wrote: > On 9/25/13 11:04 PM, Roger Pau Monné wrote: >> On 25/09/13 16:56, Julian Elischer wrote: >>> If CPUs are mapped around, how are IPIs handled? I assume they must be >>> emulated? >>> >>> I've noticed that under Xen (on both Amazon EC2 and a Redhat server) >>> whenever you schedule a thread it always sits on the run queue for 20 >>> uSecs before it starts running. It looks to me like it's the IPI taking >>> a long time to be emulated. >> This has been improved on the FreeBSD Xen PVHVM port by using PV IPIs >> instead of the emulated ones, see r255331. It should be faster than the >> previous emulated implementation. >> > I missed that.. thanks! > Do you (or anyone else) know if this can be used on Amazon EC2? > And do you need a specific version/configuration of Xen to be able to > use it? The PV IPIs require Xen version 4.0 or greater, and the PV timer requires 4.0.1 or greater if I'm not mistaken. If you are lucky to get an Amazon instance that uses this Xen version (or any superior one) they will be activated by default, if not FreeBSD will switch to the old event delivery method and PV IPIs and PV timer will be disabled in favour of the emulated ones. I guess it's just a matter of time before Amazon switches all their servers to Xen 4.x. Roger.
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