Changing Paravirt Lock-ops for a Changing World

Explore the evolution of paravirtualized lock operations in this 26-minute conference talk by Ankur Arora from Oracle. Delve into the challenges and solutions for making guest systems more dynamic, focusing on the pv_lock_ops state-machine and queued spinlocks based on MCS locks. Examine the reasons behind not universally adopting paravirt locks and the complexities involved in switching pv_lock_ops. Learn about the mechanisms for patching active systems, including the INT3 approach and two versions of design implementations. Gain insights into global barriers, counting techniques, and actual code examples. Conclude with a Q&A session to address any remaining questions on this crucial aspect of virtualization technology.