Re: [PATCH RFC 2/7] KVM: nVMX: modify vmcs12 fields to match Hyper-V enlightened VMCS

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 19/12/2017 13:25, Vitaly Kuznetsov wrote:
> 
>> At this point in time, I don't think you can just blithely change the
>> virtual VMCS layout and revision number. Existing VMs using the old
>> layout and revision number must continue to work on versions of kvm
>> past this point. You could tie the layout and revision number changes
>> to KVM_CAP_HYPERV_ENLIGHTENED_VMCS if you like, but kvm must be able
>> to continue to service VMs using the previous layout and revision
>> number in perpetuity.
>>
> I see what you mean. In case we need to keep migration of nested
> workloads working between KVMs of different versions we can't (ever)
> touch vmcs12.

Actually we can, for two reasons.

First, the active VMCS is stored in host RAM (not in guest RAM).  This
means there are clear points where to do the translation, namely vmptrld
and the (not yet upstream) ioctl to set VMX state.

Therefore you only need to keep an (offset, type) map from old to new
layout map; at those two points if you detect an old VMCS12_REVISION you
copy the fields one by one instead of doing a memcpy.  The next vmclear
or vmptrld or get-VMX-state ioctl will automatically update to the new
VMCS12_REVISION.  Of course, this is a one-way street unless you also
add support for writing old VMCS12_REVISIONs.

But, second, VMX state migration is not upstream yet, so nested
hypervisors are currently not migratable: the active VMCS12 state will
not be migrated at all!  So in upstream KVM we wouldn't even need to
upgrade the VMCS12_REVISION to make changes to vmcs12.

That said...

> The way to go in this case, I think, is to create a completely separate
> enlightened_vmcs12 struct and use it when appropriate. We can't possibly
> support migrating workloads which use enlightened VMCS to an old KVM
> which doesn't support it.

... this is probably a good idea as well.

Paolo