KVM: document lock orders
authorPaolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:10:57 +0000 (13:10 +0200)
committerPaolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 09:35:47 +0000 (11:35 +0200)
This is long overdue, and not really hard.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Message-Id: <1476357057-17899-1-git-send-email-pbonzini@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Documentation/virtual/kvm/locking.txt

index f2491a8c68b4a6f20c8a2903c21fe7286c7e9e48..e5dd9f4d61008ad6431e067b900608788e573020 100644 (file)
@@ -4,7 +4,17 @@ KVM Lock Overview
 1. Acquisition Orders
 ---------------------
 
-(to be written)
+The acquisition orders for mutexes are as follows:
+
+- kvm->lock is taken outside vcpu->mutex
+
+- kvm->lock is taken outside kvm->slots_lock and kvm->irq_lock
+
+- kvm->slots_lock is taken outside kvm->irq_lock, though acquiring
+  them together is quite rare.
+
+For spinlocks, kvm_lock is taken outside kvm->mmu_lock.  Everything
+else is a leaf: no other lock is taken inside the critical sections.
 
 2: Exception
 ------------