Re: [PATCH v3 1/5] x86/kexec: do unconditional WBINVD for bare-metal in stop_this_cpu()

From: Huang, Kai
Date: Thu Apr 11 2024 - 09:53:54 EST


On Thu, 2024-04-11 at 16:31 +0300, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 09:54:13AM +1200, Huang, Kai wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 11/04/2024 2:12 am, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > > On Mon, Apr 08, 2024 at 12:44:54AM +1200, Kai Huang wrote:
> > > > TL;DR:
> > >
> > > The commit message is waaay too verbose for no good reason. You don't
> > > really need to repeat all the history around this code.
> >
> > Could you be more specific?
> >
> > I was following Boris's suggestion to summerize all the discussion around
> > the "unconditional WBINVD" issue.
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kernel/20240228110207.GCZd8Sr8mXHA2KTiLz@fat_crate.local/
> >
> > I can try to improve if I can know specifically what should be trimmed down.
>
> What about something like this:
>
> x86/mm: Do unconditional WBINVD in stop_this_cpu() for bare metal
>
> Both AMD SME and Intel TDX can leave caches in an incoherent state due to
> memory encryption, which can lead to silent memory corruption during kexec. To
> address this issue, it is necessary to flush the caches before jumping to the
> second kernel.
>
> Previously, the kernel only performed WBINVD in stop_this_cpu() when SME
> support was detected. To support TDX as well, instead of adding vendor-specific
> checks, it is proposed to unconditionally perform WBINVD. Kexec() is a slow
> path, and the additional WBINVD is acceptable for the sake of simplicity and
> maintainability.
>
> It is important to note that WBINVD should only be done for bare-metal
> scenarios, as TDX guests and SEV-ES/SEV-SNP guests may not handle unexpected
> exceptions (#VE or #VC) caused by WBINVD.
>
> Historically, there were issues with unconditional WBINVD, leading to system
> hangs or resets on different Intel systems. These issues were addressed by a
> series of commits, culminating in the fix provided by commit 1f5e7eb7868e
> ("x86/smp: Make stop_other_cpus() more robust").
>
> Further testing on problematic machines confirmed that the issues could not be
> reproduced after applying the fix. Therefore, it is now safe to unconditionally
> perform WBINVD in stop_this_cpu().
>
> You can also add links to relevant threads as Link: tags.
>

Hmm.. The last two paragraphs doesn't tell the background that the
"unconditional WBINVD" was the original way to do etc. The changelog of commit
1f5e7eb7868e ("x86/smp: Make stop_other_cpus() more robust" (and the commit IDs
that it mentions) doesn't tell the full story either.

That means people will need to open all the Links to get the full information.
I think it is against what Boris suggested.

Yeah I agree having a lengthy changelog is annoying sometimes, but for this
particular case we have a "TL;DR" so doesn't seem that bad to me. :-)

So for now I would like to keep the text after the "Note:" in my original
changelog, but I will use your first 3 paragraphs above to replace mine.