Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] KVM: EFER.LMSLE cleanup

From: Jim Mattson
Date: Wed Sep 21 2022 - 12:38:48 EST


On Wed, Sep 21, 2022 at 9:06 AM Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2022 at 08:11:29AM -0700, Jim Mattson wrote:
> > Yes, after the revert, KVM will treat the bit as reserved, and it will
> > synthesize a #GP, *in violation of the architectural specification.*
>
> Architectural, schmarchitectural... Intel hasn't implemented it so meh.
>
> > KVM can't just decide willy nilly to reserve arbitrary bits. If it is
> > in violation of AMD's architectural specification, the virtual CPU is
> > defective.
>
> Grrr, after your revert that this bit was *only* reserved and nothing
> else to KVM. Like every other reserved bit in EFER. Yeah, yeah, AMD
> specified it as architectural but Intel didn't implement it so there's
> this thing on paper and there's reality...

AMD defined the 64-bit x86 extensions while Intel was distracted with
their VLIW science fair project. In this space, Intel produces AMD64
compatible CPUs. The definitive specification comes from AMD (which is
sad, because AMD's documentation is abysmal).