Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 02/18] KVM: x86: Use __free(put_cpufreq_policy) for policy reference

From: Sean Christopherson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:15:17 -0700

On Thu, Aug 28, 2025, Zihuan Zhang wrote:
> > Hmm, this is technically buggy.  __free() won't invoke put_cpufreq_policy() until
> > policy goes out of scope, and so using __free() means the code is effectively:
> > 
> > 		if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_CPU_FREQ)) {
> > 			struct cpufreq_policy *policy;
> > 			int cpu;
> > 
> > 			cpu = get_cpu();
> > 			policy = cpufreq_cpu_get(cpu);
> > 			if (policy && policy->cpuinfo.max_freq)
> > 				max_tsc_khz = policy->cpuinfo.max_freq;
> > 			put_cpu();
> > 
> > 			if (policy)
> > 				cpufreq_cpu_put(policy);
> > 		}

...

> Yes, this will indeed change the execution order.
> Can you accept that? 

No, because it's buggy.

> Personally, I don’t think it’s ideal either.
> 
> 		if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_CPU_FREQ)) {
>  			int cpu;
> 			cpu = get_cpu();
> 			{
> 				struct cpufreq_policy *policy __free(put_cpufreq_policy) = cpufreq_cpu_get(cpu);
> 				if (policy && policy->cpuinfo.max_freq)
> 					max_tsc_khz = policy->cpuinfo.max_freq;
> 			}
> 			put_cpu();
> 
>                                             }
> 
> Other places may also have the same issue,
> 
> maybe we should consider introducing a macro to handle this properly,
> so that initialization and cleanup are well defined without changing
> the existing order unexpected.
> 
> like this:
> 
> #define WITH_CPUFREQ_POLICY(cpu) {\
> 
> for(struct cpufreq_policy *policy __free(put_cpufreq_policy) =  \
> 			cpufreq_cpu_get(cpu);			\
> 			policy;)
> 
> Then Use it:
> 
> 		if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_CPU_FREQ)) {
>  			int cpu;
> 			cpu = get_cpu();
> 			WITH_CPUFREQ_POLICY(cpu){
> 				if (policy->cpuinfo.max_freq)
> 					max_tsc_khz = policy->cpuinfo.max_freq;
> 			}
> 			put_cpu();

This all feels very forced, in the sense that we have a shiny new tool and are
trying to use it everywhere without thinking critically about whether or not
doing so is actually an improvement.

At a glance, this is literally the only instance in the entire kernel where the
CPU to use is grabbed immediately before the policy.
 
  $ git grep -B 20 cpufreq_cpu_get | grep -e get_cpu -e smp_processor_id
  arch/x86/kvm/x86.c-			cpu = get_cpu();
  drivers/cpufreq/cppc_cpufreq.c-static int cppc_get_cpu_power(struct device *cpu_dev,
  drivers/cpufreq/cppc_cpufreq.c-static int cppc_get_cpu_cost(struct device *cpu_dev, unsigned long KHz,
  drivers/cpufreq/mediatek-cpufreq-hw.c-mtk_cpufreq_get_cpu_power(struct device *cpu_dev, unsigned long *uW,

Probably because KVM's usage is rather bizarre and honestly kind of dumb.  But
KVM has had this behavior for 15+ years, so as weird as it is, I'm not inclined
to change it without a really, really strong reason to do so, e.g. to iterate
over all CPUs or something.

So given that this is the only intance of the problem patter, I think it makes
sense to leave KVM as-is, and not spend a bunch of time trying to figure out how
to make KVM's usage play nice with __free().