Re: [PATCH v1 1/1] x86/fred: Fix the FRED RSP0 MSR out of sync with its per CPU cache

From: Xin Li
Date: Thu Jan 09 2025 - 13:49:19 EST


On 1/9/2025 1:46 AM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
On January 8, 2025 12:14:18 PM PST, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 1/7/25 18:36, Xin Li (Intel) wrote:
+ * Another option is to leave the FRED RSP0 MSR as-is, because the RESET
+ * state of FRED MSRs is zero and INIT does not change the value of the
+ * FRED MSRs in a CPU offline/online cycle. But it doesn't seem safe to
+ * depend on the properties of INIT as that's way too many things that
+ * could cause bugs.

Wouldn't that also open us up to kexec problems? If the last kernel
(maybe not even Linux) left RSP0 set, then the current kernel might
eventually try to run userspace with the old kernel's RSP0 value.


Yeah, it is a nonstarter. I believe Xin was trying to document the problems with *not* doing this, so someone doesn't have the bright idea to "optimize" this later.


exactly ;)