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docs: mention virtualization design decision for ARM
Talk about the architectural decision of allowing guest access to the host physical counter. Signed-off-by: Diana Popa <[email protected]>
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docs/prod-host-setup.md

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@@ -316,3 +316,14 @@ The fix was integrated in the mainline kernel and in 4.19.103, 5.4.19, 5.5.3
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stable kernel releases. Please follow [kernel.org](https://www.kernel.org/) and
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once the fix is available in your stable release please update the host kernel.
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If you are not using a vanilla kernel, please check with Linux distro provider.
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#### [ARM only] Physical counter directly passed through to the guest
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On ARM, the physical counter (i.e `CNTPCT`) it is returning the
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[actual EL1 physical counter value of the host][1]. From the discussions before
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merging this change [upstream][2], this seems like a conscious design decision
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of the ARM code contributors, giving precedence to performance over the ability
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to trap and control this in the hypervisor.
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[1]: https://elixir.free-electrons.com/linux/v4.14.203/source/virt/kvm/arm/hyp/timer-sr.c#L63
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[2]: https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/pipermail/kvmarm/2017-January/023323.html

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