Re: [PATCH 1/2] KVM: X86: Move ignore_msrs handling upper the stack

From: Sean Christopherson
Date: Thu Jul 09 2020 - 15:24:44 EST


On Thu, Jul 09, 2020 at 02:22:20PM -0400, Peter Xu wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 08:47:26AM -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 04:24:34PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > On 26/06/20 20:18, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > > >> Btw, would it be more staightforward to check "vcpu->arch.arch_capabilities &
> > > >> ARCH_CAP_TSX_CTRL_MSR" rather than "*ebx | (F(RTM) | F(HLE))" even if we want
> > > >> to have such a fix?
> > > > Not really, That ends up duplicating the check in vmx_get_msr(). From an
> > > > emulation perspective, this really is a "guest" access to the MSR, in the
> > > > sense that it the virtual CPU is in the guest domain, i.e. not a god-like
> > > > entity that gets to break the rules of emulation.
> > >
> > > But if you wrote a guest that wants to read MSR_IA32_TSX_CTRL, there are
> > > two choices:
> > >
> > > 1) check ARCH_CAPABILITIES first
> > >
> > > 2) blindly access it and default to 0.
> > >
> > > Both are fine, because we know MSR_IA32_TSX_CTRL has no
> > > reserved/must-be-one bits. Calling __kvm_get_msr and checking for an
> > > invalid MSR through the return value is not breaking the rules of
> > > emulation, it is "faking" a #GP handler.
> >
> > "guest" was the wrong choice of word. My point was that, IMO, emulation
> > should never set host_initiated=true.
> >
> > To me, accessing MSRs with host_initiated is the equivalent of loading a
> > ucode patch, i.e. it's super duper special stuff that deliberately turns
> > off all safeguards and can change the fundamental behavior of the (virtual)
> > CPU.
>
> This seems to be an orthogonal change against what this series tried to do. We
> use host_initiated=true in current code, and this series won't change that fact
> either. As I mentioned in the other thread, at least the rdmsr warning is
> ambiguous when it's not initiated from the guest if without this patchset, and
> this series could address that.

My argument is that using host_initiated=true is wrong.

> > > So I think Peter's patch is fine, but (possibly on top as a third patch)
> > > __must_check should be added to MSR getters and setters. Also one
> > > possibility is to return -EINVAL for invalid MSRs.
>
> Yeah I can add another patch for that. Also if to repost, I tend to also
> introduce KVM_MSR_RET_[OK|ERROR] too, which seems to be cleaner when we had
> KVM_MSR_RET_INVALID.
>
> Any objections before I repost?

Heh, or perhaps "Any objections that haven't been overruled before I repost?" :-D