Re: [PATCH v2 3/5] x86/boot/compressed/64: Check SEV encryption in 64-bit boot-path

From: Arvind Sankar
Date: Tue Oct 20 2020 - 12:04:35 EST


On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 05:48:12PM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 10:12:59AM -0400, Arvind Sankar wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 02:18:54PM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> > Why use r10-r12 rather than the caller-save registers? Even for the head
> > code where you need to perserve the cr3 value you can just return it in
> > rax?
>
> It can surely be optimized, but it makes the code less robust. This
> function is only called from assembly so the standard x86-64 calling
> conventions might not be followed strictly. I think its better to make
> as few assumptions as possible about the calling code to avoid
> regressions. Changes to the head code are not necessarily tested with
> SEV/SEV-ES guests by developers.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joerg

This is called from both assembly and C, but anyway, you're already
assuming r10 and r11 can be clobbered safely, and you just took out the
save/restores in set_sev_encryption_mask, which is actually called only
from assembly.