gem5 - gem5

Age	Commit message (Collapse)	Author
2013-09-25	kvm: Initial x86 support	Andreas Sandberg
	This changeset adds support for KVM on x86. Full support is split across a number of commits since some features are relatively complex. This changeset includes support for: * Integer state synchronization (including segment regs) * CPUID (gem5's CPUID values are inserted into KVM) * x86 legacy IO (remapped and handled by gem5's memory system) * Memory mapped IO * PCI * MSRs * State dumping Most of the functionality is fairly straight forward. There are some quirks to support PCI enumerations since this is done in the TLB(!) in the simulated CPUs. We currently replicate some of that code. Unlike the ARM implementation, the x86 implementation of the virtual CPU does not use the cycles hardware counter. KVM on x86 simulates the time stamp counter (TSC) in the kernel. If we just measure host cycles using perfevent, we might end up measuring a slightly different number of cycles. If we don't get the cycle accounting right, we might end up rewinding the TSC, with all kinds of chaos as a result. An additional feature of the KVM CPU on x86 is extended state dumping. This enables Python scripts controlling the simulator to request dumping of a subset of the processor state. The following methods are currenlty supported: * dumpFpuRegs * dumpIntRegs * dumpSpecRegs * dumpDebugRegs * dumpXCRs * dumpXSave * dumpVCpuEvents * dumpMSRs Known limitations: * M5 ops are currently not supported. * FPU synchronization is not supported (only affects CPU switching). Both of the limitations will be addressed in separate commits.
2013-04-22	kvm: Basic support for hardware virtualized CPUs	Andreas Sandberg
	This changeset introduces the architecture independent parts required to support KVM-accelerated CPUs. It introduces two new simulation objects: KvmVM -- The KVM VM is a component shared between all CPUs in a shared memory domain. It is typically instantiated as a child of the system object in the simulation hierarchy. It provides access to KVM VM specific interfaces. BaseKvmCPU -- Abstract base class for all KVM-based CPUs. Architecture dependent CPU implementations inherit from this class and implement the following methods: * updateKvmState() -- Update the architecture-dependent KVM state from the gem5 thread context associated with the CPU. * updateThreadContext() -- Update the thread context from the architecture-dependent KVM state. * dump() -- Dump the KVM state using (optional). In order to deliver interrupts to the guest, CPU implementations typically override the tick() method and check for, and deliver, interrupts prior to entering KVM. Hardware-virutalized CPU currently have the following limitations: * SE mode is not supported. * PC events are not supported. * Timing statistics are currently very limited. The current approach simply scales the host cycles with a user-configurable factor. * The simulated system must not contain any caches. * Since cycle counts are approximate, there is no way to request an exact number of cycles (or instructions) to be executed by the CPU. * Hardware virtualized CPUs and gem5 CPUs must not execute at the same time in the same simulator instance. * Only single-CPU systems can be simulated. * Remote GDB connections to the guest system are not supported. Additionally, m5ops requires an architecture specific interface and might not be supported.