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Krister Johansen authored
Kvm elects to use tsc instead of kvm-clock when it can detect that the TSC is invariant. (As of commit 7539b174 ("x86: kvmguest: use TSC clocksource if invariant TSC is exposed")). Notable cloud vendors[1] and performance engineers[2] recommend that Xen users preferentially select tsc over xen-clocksource due the performance penalty incurred by the latter. These articles are persuasive and tailored to specific use cases. In order to understand the tradeoffs around this choice more fully, this author had to reference the documented[3] complexities around the Xen configuration, as well as the kernel's clocksource selection algorithm. Many users may not attempt this to correctly configure the right clock source in their guest. The approach taken in the kvm-clock module spares users this confusion, where possible. Both the Intel SDM[4] and the Xen tsc documentation explain that marking a tsc as invariant means that it should be considered stable by the OS and is elibile to be used as a wall clock source. In order to obtain better out-of-the-box performance, and reduce the need for user tuning, follow kvm's approach and decrease the xen clock rating so that tsc is preferable, if it is invariant, stable, and the tsc will never be emulated. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/manage-ec2-linux-clock-source/ [2] https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2021-09-26/the-speed-of-time.html [3] https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/man/xen-tscmode.7.html [4] Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Sofware Developer's Manual Volume 3b: System Programming Guide, Part 2, Section 17.17.1, Invariant TSC Signed-off-by: Krister Johansen <kjlx@templeofstupid.com> Code-reviewed-by: David Reaver <me@davidreaver.com> Reviewed-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221216162118.GB2633@templeofstupid.comSigned-off-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>
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