xen/balloon: add runtime control for scrubbing ballooned out pages

Scrubbing pages on initial balloon down can take some time, especially
in nested virtualization case (nested EPT is slow). When HVM/PVH guest is
started with memory= significantly lower than maxmem=, all the extra
pages will be scrubbed before returning to Xen. But since most of them
weren't used at all at that point, Xen needs to populate them first
(from populate-on-demand pool). In nested virt case (Xen inside KVM)
this slows down the guest boot by 15-30s with just 1.5GB needed to be
returned to Xen.

Add runtime parameter to enable/disable it, to allow initially disabling
scrubbing, then enable it back during boot (for example in initramfs).
Such usage relies on assumption that a) most pages ballooned out during
initial boot weren't used at all, and b) even if they were, very few
secrets are in the guest at that time (before any serious userspace
kicks in).
Convert CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES to CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES_DEFAULT (also
enabled by default), controlling default value for the new runtime
switch.

Signed-off-by: Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <marmarek@invisiblethingslab.com>
Reviewed-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>

authored by Marek Marczykowski-Górecki and committed by Boris Ostrovsky 197ecb38 87dffe86

+33 -6
+9
Documentation/ABI/stable/sysfs-devices-system-xen_memory
··· 75 75 Description: 76 76 Amount (in KiB) of low (or normal) memory in the 77 77 balloon. 78 + 79 + What: /sys/devices/system/xen_memory/xen_memory0/scrub_pages 80 + Date: September 2018 81 + KernelVersion: 4.20 82 + Contact: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org 83 + Description: 84 + Control scrubbing pages before returning them to Xen for others domains 85 + use. Can be set with xen_scrub_pages cmdline 86 + parameter. Default value controlled with CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES_DEFAULT.
+6
Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
··· 5000 5000 Disables the PV optimizations forcing the HVM guest to 5001 5001 run as generic HVM guest with no PV drivers. 5002 5002 5003 + xen_scrub_pages= [XEN] 5004 + Boolean option to control scrubbing pages before giving them back 5005 + to Xen, for use by other domains. Can be also changed at runtime 5006 + with /sys/devices/system/xen_memory/xen_memory0/scrub_pages. 5007 + Default value controlled with CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES_DEFAULT. 5008 + 5003 5009 xirc2ps_cs= [NET,PCMCIA] 5004 5010 Format: 5005 5011 <irq>,<irq_mask>,<io>,<full_duplex>,<do_sound>,<lockup_hack>[,<irq2>[,<irq3>[,<irq4>]]]
+7 -3
drivers/xen/Kconfig
··· 79 79 This value is used to allocate enough space in internal 80 80 tables needed for physical memory administration. 81 81 82 - config XEN_SCRUB_PAGES 83 - bool "Scrub pages before returning them to system" 82 + config XEN_SCRUB_PAGES_DEFAULT 83 + bool "Scrub pages before returning them to system by default" 84 84 depends on XEN_BALLOON 85 85 default y 86 86 help 87 87 Scrub pages before returning them to the system for reuse by 88 88 other domains. This makes sure that any confidential data 89 89 is not accidentally visible to other domains. Is it more 90 - secure, but slightly less efficient. 90 + secure, but slightly less efficient. This can be controlled with 91 + xen_scrub_pages=0 parameter and 92 + /sys/devices/system/xen_memory/xen_memory0/scrub_pages. 93 + This option only sets the default value. 94 + 91 95 If in doubt, say yes. 92 96 93 97 config XEN_DEV_EVTCHN
+4
drivers/xen/mem-reservation.c
··· 14 14 15 15 #include <xen/interface/memory.h> 16 16 #include <xen/mem-reservation.h> 17 + #include <linux/moduleparam.h> 18 + 19 + bool __read_mostly xen_scrub_pages = IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES_DEFAULT); 20 + core_param(xen_scrub_pages, xen_scrub_pages, bool, 0); 17 21 18 22 /* 19 23 * Use one extent per PAGE_SIZE to avoid to break down the page into
+3
drivers/xen/xen-balloon.c
··· 44 44 #include <xen/xenbus.h> 45 45 #include <xen/features.h> 46 46 #include <xen/page.h> 47 + #include <xen/mem-reservation.h> 47 48 48 49 #define PAGES2KB(_p) ((_p)<<(PAGE_SHIFT-10)) 49 50 ··· 138 137 static DEVICE_ULONG_ATTR(max_schedule_delay, 0644, balloon_stats.max_schedule_delay); 139 138 static DEVICE_ULONG_ATTR(retry_count, 0444, balloon_stats.retry_count); 140 139 static DEVICE_ULONG_ATTR(max_retry_count, 0644, balloon_stats.max_retry_count); 140 + static DEVICE_BOOL_ATTR(scrub_pages, 0644, xen_scrub_pages); 141 141 142 142 static ssize_t show_target_kb(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr, 143 143 char *buf) ··· 205 203 &dev_attr_max_schedule_delay.attr.attr, 206 204 &dev_attr_retry_count.attr.attr, 207 205 &dev_attr_max_retry_count.attr.attr, 206 + &dev_attr_scrub_pages.attr.attr, 208 207 NULL 209 208 }; 210 209
+4 -3
include/xen/mem-reservation.h
··· 17 17 18 18 #include <xen/page.h> 19 19 20 + extern bool xen_scrub_pages; 21 + 20 22 static inline void xenmem_reservation_scrub_page(struct page *page) 21 23 { 22 - #ifdef CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES 23 - clear_highpage(page); 24 - #endif 24 + if (xen_scrub_pages) 25 + clear_highpage(page); 25 26 } 26 27 27 28 #ifdef CONFIG_XEN_HAVE_PVMMU