Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86: Latch INITs only in specific CPU states in KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS

[Paolo Bonzini]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 6:01 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2025, Fei Li wrote:
> > Commit ff90afa75573 ("KVM: x86: Evaluate latched_init in
> > KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS when vCPU not in SMM") changes KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS
> > handler to set pending LAPIC INIT event regardless of if vCPU is in
> > SMM mode or not.
> >
> > However, latch INIT without checking CPU state exists race condition,
> > which causes the loss of INIT event. This is fatal during the VM
> > startup process because it will cause some AP to never switch to
> > non-root mode. Just as commit f4ef19108608 ("KVM: X86: Fix loss of
> > pending INIT due to race") said:
> >       BSP                          AP
> >                      kvm_vcpu_ioctl_x86_get_vcpu_events
> >                        events->smi.latched_init = 0
> >
> >                      kvm_vcpu_block
> >                        kvm_vcpu_check_block
> >                          schedule
> >
> > send INIT to AP
> >                      kvm_vcpu_ioctl_x86_set_vcpu_events
> >                      (e.g. `info registers -a` when VM starts/reboots)
> >                        if (events->smi.latched_init == 0)
> >                          clear INIT in pending_events
>
> This is a QEMU bug, no?

I think I agree.

> IIUC, it's invoking kvm_vcpu_ioctl_x86_set_vcpu_events()
> with stale data.

More precisely, it's not expecting other vCPUs to change the pending
events asynchronously.

> I'm also a bit confused as to how QEMU is even gaining control
> of the vCPU to emit KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS if the vCPU is in
> kvm_vcpu_block().

With a signal. :)

Paolo