Re: [RFC PATCH] KVM: x86: hyper-v: Inhibit APICv with VP Assist on SPR/EMR

[Sean Christopherson]

On Tue, Aug 06, 2024, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 6:03 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > As is noted in [1], this issue is considered to be a microcode issue
> > > specific to SPR/EMR.
> >
> > I don't think we can claim that without a more explicit statement from Intel.
> > And I would really like Intel to clarify exactly what is going on, so that (a)
> > it can be properly documented and (b) we can implement a precise, targeted
> > workaround in KVM.
> 
> It is not even clear to me why this patch has any effect at all,
> because PV EOI and APICv don't work together anyway: PV EOI requires
> apic->highest_isr_cache == -1 (see apic_sync_pv_eoi_to_guest()) but
> the cache is only set without APICv (see apic_set_isr()).  Therefore,
> PV EOI should be basically a no-op with APICv in use.

Per Chao, this is a ucode bug though.  Speculating wildly, I wonder if Intel added
acceleration and/or redirection of HV_X64_MSR_EOI when APICv is enabled, e.g. to
speed up existing VMs, and something went sideways.