Re: [PATCH] x86/mce: Check for hypervisor before enabling additional error logging

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Tue Nov 10 2020 - 15:37:42 EST


On 10/11/20 18:52, Luck, Tony wrote:
Look at what it is trying to do ... change the behavior of the platform w.r.t. logging
of memory errors. How does that make any sense for a guest ...

Logging of memory errors certainly makes sense for a guest, KVM already does MCE forwarding as you probably know.

The exact set of information that MSR_ERROR_CONTROL[1] adds may not make much sense in the case of KVM, but it may make sense for other hypervisors that do nothing but partition the host. (Difficult for me to say since the relevant part of the SDM might as well be written in Klingon :)).

In any case, checking HYPERVISOR is not enough because having it clear is a valid configuration. So you would still have to switch to {rd,wr}msrl_safe, and then checking HYPERVISOR is pointless.

Paolo

that doesn't even
know what memory is present on the platform. Or have guarantees that what it sees
as memory address 0x12345678 maps to the same set of cells in a DRAM from one
second to the next?