Re: [PATCH v4 07/17] svm: Add support for setup/destroy virutal APIC backing page for AVIC

[Suravee Suthikulpanit]

Roman,

On 11/4/19 3:53 PM, Roman Kagan wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 01, 2019 at 10:41:30PM +0000, Suthikulpanit, Suravee wrote:
> > Re-factor avic_init_access_page() to avic_update_access_page() since
> > activate/deactivate AVIC requires setting/unsetting the memory region used
> > for virtual APIC backing page (APIC_ACCESS_PAGE_PRIVATE_MEMSLOT).
>
> AFAICT the patch actually touches the (de)allocation of the APIC access
> page rather than the APIC backing page (or I'm confused in the
> nomenclature).

The APIC backing page is allocated during vcpu initialization, while
the APIC_ACCESS_PAGE_PRIVATE_MEMSLOT, is initialized per-vm, and is
used mainly for access permission control of the APIC backing page.

There is a comment in the arch/x86/kvm/svm.c:

 /**
  * Note:
  * AVIC hardware walks the nested page table to check permissions,
  * but does not use the SPA address specified in the leaf page
  * table entry since it uses address in the AVIC_BACKING_PAGE pointer
  * field of the VMCB. Therefore, we set up the
  * APIC_ACCESS_PAGE_PRIVATE_MEMSLOT (4KB) here.
  */

When deactivate APICv, we do not destroy the APIC backing page, but
we need to de-allocate the APIC_ACCESS_PAGE_PRIVATE_MEMSLOT.

Thanks,
Suravee

> Thanks,
> Roman.