Re: [Xen-devel] RIP MTRR - status update for upcoming v4.2

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@xxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-08-07 at 13:25 -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@xxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Thu, 2015-08-06 at 12:53 -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>> > > On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@xxxxxx> wrote:
>> > > > On Fri, 2015-06-12 at 08:59 +0100, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> > > > > > > > On 12.06.15 at 01:23, <toshi.kani@xxxxxx> wrote:
>> > > > > > There are two usages on MTRRs:
>> > > > > >  1) MTRR entries set by firmware
>> > > > > >  2) MTRR entries set by OS drivers
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > We can obsolete 2), but we have no control over 1).  As UEFI
>> > > > > > firmwares also set this up, this usage will continue to stay.
>> > > > > >  So, we should not get rid of the MTRR code that looks up the
>> > > > > > MTRR entries, while we have no need to modify them.
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > Such MTRR entries provide safe guard to /dev/mem, which allows
>> > > > > > privileged user to access a range that may require UC mapping
>> > > > > > while the /dev/mem driver blindly maps it with WB.  MTRRs
>> > > > > > converts WB to UC in such a case.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > But it wouldn't be impossible to simply read the MTRRs upon boot,
>> > > > > store the information, disable MTRRs, and correctly use PAT to
>> > > > > achieve the same effect (i.e. the "blindly maps" part of course
>> > > > > would need fixing).
>> > > >
>> > > > It could be done, but I do not see much benefit of doing it.  One of
>> > > > the reasons platform vendors set MTRRs is so that a system won't hit
>> > > > a machine check when an OS bug leads an access with a wrong cache
>> > > > type.
>> > > >
>> > > > A machine check is hard to analyze and can be seen as a hardware
>> > > > issue by customers.  Emulating MTRRs with PAT won't protect from
>> > > > such a bug.
>> > >
>> > > That's seems like a fair and valid concern. This could only happen if
>> > > the OS would have code that would use MTRR, in the case of Linux we'll
>> > > soon be able to vet that this cannot happen.
>> >
>> > No, there is no OS support necessary to use MTRR.  After firmware sets
>> > it up, CPUs continue to use it without any OS support.  I think the
>> > Linux change you are referring is to obsolete legacy interfaces that
>> > modify the MTRR setup.  I agree that Linux should not modify MTRR.
>>
>> Its a bit more than that though. Since you agree that the OS can live
>> without MTRR code I was hoping to then see if we can fold out PAT
>> Linux code from under the MTRR dependency on Linux and make PAT a
>> first class citizen, maybe at least for x86-64. Right now you can only
>> get PAT support on Linux if you have MTRR code, but I'd like to see if
>> instead we can rip MTRR code out completely under its own Kconfig and
>> let it start rotting away.
>>
>> Code-wise the only issue I saw was that PAT code also relies on
>> mtrr_type_lookup(), see pat_x_mtrr_type(), but other than this I found
>> no other obvious issues.
>
> We can rip of the MTTR code that modifies the MTRR setup, but not
> mtrr_type_lookup().  This function provides necessary checks per documented
> in commit 7f0431e3dc89 as follows.
>
>     1) reserve_memtype() tracks an effective memory type in case
>        a request type is WB (ex. /dev/mem blindly uses WB). Missing
>        to track with its effective type causes a subsequent request
>        to map the same range with the effective type to fail.
>
>     2) pud_set_huge() and pmd_set_huge() check if a requested range
>        has any overlap with MTRRs. Missing to detect an overlap may
>        cause a performance penalty or undefined behavior.
>
> mtrr_type_lookup() is still admittedly awkward, but I do not think we have
> an immediate issue in PAT code calling it.  I do not think it makes PAT code
> a second class citizen.

OK since we know that if MTRR set up code ends up disabled and would
return MTRR_TYPE_INVALID what if we just static inline this for the
no-MTRR Kconfig build option immediately, and only then have the full
blown implementation for the case where MTRR Kconfig option is
enabled?

>> Platform firmware and SMIs seems to be the only other possible issue.
>> More on this below.
>>
>> > > For those type of OSes...
>> > > could it be possible to negotiate or hint to the platform through an
>> > > attribute somehow that the OS has such capability to not use MTRR?
>> >
>> > The OS can disable MTRR.  However, this can also cause a problem in
>> > firmware, which may rely on MTRR.
>>
>> Can you describe what type of issues we could expect ? I tend to care
>> more about this for 64-bit systems so if 32-bit platforms would be
>> more of the ones which could cause an issue would restricting
>> disabling MTRR only for 64-bit help?
>
> The SMI handler runs in real-mode and relies on MTRR being effective to
> provide right cache types.  It does not matter if it is 64-bit or not.

I see... since I have no visibility to what goes under the hood, can
you provide one example use case where an SMI handler would require
getting a cache type through MTRR ? I realize this can vary, vendor by
vendor, but any example would do just to satisfy my curiosity.

>> > > Then, only if this bit is set, the platform could then avoid such MTRR
>> > > settings, and if we have issues you can throw rocks at us.
>> >
>> > > And if that's not possible how about a new platform setting that would
>> > > need to be set at the platform level to enable disabling this junk?
>> > > Then only folks who know what they are doing would enable it, and if
>> > > the customer set it, the issue would not be on the platform.
>> >
>> > > Could this also be used to prevent SMIs with MTRRs?
>> >
>> > ACPI _OSI could be used for firmware to implement some OS-specific
>> > features, but it may be too late for firmware to make major changes and
>> > is generally useless unless OS requirements are described in a spec
>> > backed by logo certification.
>>
>> I see.. So there are no guarantees that platform firmware would not
>> expect OS MTRR support.
>>
>> >  SMIs are also used for platform management, such as fan
>> > speed control.
>>
>> And its conceivable that some devices, or the platform itself, may
>> trigger SMIs to have the platform firmware poke with MTRRs?
>
> SMIs are outside of OS control.  SMI handler relies on MTRR being set.  SMI
> must be quick, so the handler should not be required to initialize MTRR or
> page tables.

Right makes sense.

>> > Is there any issue for Linux to use MTRR set by firmware?
>>
>> Even though we don't have the Kconfig option right now to disable MTRR
>> cod explicitly I'll note that there are a few other cases that could
>> flip Linux to note use MTRR:
>>
>>   a) Some BIOSes could let MTRR get disabled
>>   b) As of Xen 4.4, the hypervisor disables X86_FEATURE_MTRR which
>> disables MTRR on Linux
>>
>> If these environments can exist it'd be good to understand possible
>> issues that could creep up as a result of the OS not having MTRR
>> enabled. If this is a reasonable thing for x86-64 I was hoping we
>> could just let users opt-in to a similar build configuration through
>> the OS by letting PAT not depend on MTRR.
>
> Case a) and b) do not cause any issue.  They simply lead mtrr_type_lookup()
> to return immediately with MTRR_TYPE_INVALID (i.e. MTRR disable), and the
> callers handle this value properly.  These cases are only problematic when
> the OS tries to modify MTRR.

OK if the OS returns MTRR_TYPE_INVALID, for folks who do not want MTRR
code on their kernel, we should be OK?

 Luis
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