KVM: x86: Drop support for hand tuning APIC timer advancement from userspace

Remove support for specifying a static local APIC timer advancement value,
and instead present a read-only boolean parameter to let userspace enable
or disable KVM's dynamic APIC timer advancement.  Realistically, it's all
but impossible for userspace to specify an advancement that is more
precise than what KVM's adaptive tuning can provide.  E.g. a static value
needs to be tuned for the exact hardware and kernel, and if KVM is using
hrtimers, likely requires additional tuning for the exact configuration of
the entire system.

Dropping support for a userspace provided value also fixes several flaws
in the interface.  E.g. KVM interprets a negative value other than -1 as a
large advancement, toggling between a negative and positive value yields
unpredictable behavior as vCPUs will switch from dynamic to static
advancement, changing the advancement in the middle of VM creation can
result in different values for vCPUs within a VM, etc.  Those flaws are
mostly fixable, but there's almost no justification for taking on yet more
complexity (it's minimal complexity, but still non-zero).

The only arguments against using KVM's adaptive tuning is if a setup needs
a higher maximum, or if the adjustments are too reactive, but those are
arguments for letting userspace control the absolute max advancement and
the granularity of each adjustment, e.g. similar to how KVM provides knobs
for halt polling.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240520115334.852510-1-zhoushuling@huawei.com
Cc: Shuling Zhou <zhoushuling@huawei.com>
Cc: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Message-ID: <20240522010304.1650603-1-seanjc@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
index 082ac6d95a3a..8c9e4281d978 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
@@ -164,15 +164,6 @@ module_param(kvmclock_periodic_sync, bool, 0444);
 static u32 __read_mostly tsc_tolerance_ppm = 250;
 module_param(tsc_tolerance_ppm, uint, 0644);
 
-/*
- * lapic timer advance (tscdeadline mode only) in nanoseconds.  '-1' enables
- * adaptive tuning starting from default advancement of 1000ns.  '0' disables
- * advancement entirely.  Any other value is used as-is and disables adaptive
- * tuning, i.e. allows privileged userspace to set an exact advancement time.
- */
-static int __read_mostly lapic_timer_advance_ns = -1;
-module_param(lapic_timer_advance_ns, int, 0644);
-
 static bool __read_mostly vector_hashing = true;
 module_param(vector_hashing, bool, 0444);
 
@@ -12169,7 +12160,7 @@ int kvm_arch_vcpu_create(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
 	if (r < 0)
 		return r;
 
-	r = kvm_create_lapic(vcpu, lapic_timer_advance_ns);
+	r = kvm_create_lapic(vcpu);
 	if (r < 0)
 		goto fail_mmu_destroy;