Re: [PATCH v2 46/46] KVM: x86: Preserve guest's CR0.CD/NW on INIT

From: Reiji Watanabe
Date: Tue Jul 20 2021 - 00:39:43 EST


On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 9:35 AM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Preserve CR0.CD and CR0.NW on INIT instead of forcing them to '1', as
> defined by both Intel's SDM and AMD's APM.
>
> Note, current versions of Intel's SDM are very poorly written with
> respect to INIT behavior. Table 9-1. "IA-32 and Intel 64 Processor
> States Following Power-up, Reset, or INIT" quite clearly lists power-up,
> RESET, _and_ INIT as setting CR0=60000010H, i.e. CD/NW=1. But the SDM
> then attempts to qualify CD/NW behavior in a footnote:
>
> 2. The CD and NW flags are unchanged, bit 4 is set to 1, all other bits
> are cleared.
>
> Presumably that footnote is only meant for INIT, as the RESET case and
> especially the power-up case are rather non-sensical. Another footnote
> all but confirms that:
>
> 6. Internal caches are invalid after power-up and RESET, but left
> unchanged with an INIT.
>
> Bare metal testing shows that CD/NW are indeed preserved on INIT (someone
> else can hack their BIOS to check RESET and power-up :-D).
>
> Reported-by: Reiji Watanabe <reijiw@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx>

Reviewed-by: Reiji Watanabe <reijiw@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thank you for the fix and checking the CD/NW with the bare metal testing.

Regards,
Reiji