Re: [RFC] CPUID usage for interaction between Hypervisors and Linux.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> > The big difference here is that you could create a VM at runtime (by 
> > combining the existing interfaces) that did not exist before (or was 
> > not tested before). For example, a hypervisor could show hyper-v, 
> > osx-v (if any), linux-v, etc., and a guest could create a VM with 
> > hyper-v MMU, osx-v interrupt handling, Linux-v timer, etc. And such 
> > combinations/variations can grow exponentially.
>
> That would be crazy.

Not necessarily, although the example above is extreme.  Redundant 
interfaces is the norm in an evolving platform.

> > Or are you suggesting that multiple interfaces be _available_ to 
> > guests at runtime but the guest chooses one of them?
>
> Right, that's what I've been suggesting.    I think hypervisors should 
> be able to offer multiple ABIs to guests, but a guest has to commit to 
> using one exclusively (ie, once they start to use one then the others 
> turn themselves off, kill the domain, etc).

Not inherently.  Of course, there may be interfaces which are interently 
or by policy mutually exclusive, but a hypervisor should only export the 
interfaces it wants a guest to be able to use.

This is particularly so with CPUID, which is a *data export* interface, 
it doesn't perform any action.

	-hpa
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