Translation lookaside buffer for guest physical addresses in a virtual machine

Abstract

Embodiments of an invention for a guest-physical address translation lookaside buffer are disclosed. In an embodiment, a processor includes an instruction decoder, a control register, and memory address translation hardware. The instruction decoder is to receive an instruction to transfer control of the processor to guest software to execute on a virtual machine. The virtual machine is to have a plurality of resources to be controlled by a virtual machine monitor. The virtual machine monitor is to execute on a host machine having a host-physical memory to be accessed using a plurality of host-physical addresses. The plurality of resources is to include a guest-physical memory. The guest software is to access the guest-physical memory using a plurality of guest-virtual addresses. The control register is to store a pointer to a plurality of virtual address page tables. The memory address translation hardware is to translate, without causing a virtual machine exit, guest-virtual addresses to host-physical addresses using the plurality of virtual address page tables and a plurality of extended page tables. The memory address translation hardware includes a virtual address translation lookaside buffer in which to store a plurality of virtual address entries corresponding to guest-virtual address to host-physical address translations. The memory address translation hardware also includes a guest-physical address translation lookaside buffer in which to store a plurality of guest-physical address entries corresponding to guest-physical address to host-physical address translations.