Re: [PATCH RFC v2 7/9] x86/fpu/apx: Disallow conflicting MPX presence

[Dave Hansen]

On 4/14/25 10:09, Sohil Mehta wrote:
> On 3/20/2025 4:42 PM, Chang S. Bae wrote:
>> APX is introduced as xstate component 19, following AMX. However, in the
>> non-compacted format, its offset overlaps with the space previously
>> occupied by the now-deprecated MPX:
>>
>>   45fc24e89b7c ("x86/mpx: remove MPX from arch/x86")
>>
> Would it be useful to describe why and how this is possible?

Every XSAVE state component is architecturally independent. There's no
architectural rule out there that says that state component offsets in
the non-compacted format must always go up or that they can't overlap.
But, there's never been an overlap like this before.

So this is technically allowed, but it's weird and it breaks some
internal assumptions that the kernel has.

Does that summarize it OK?

> My knowledge on this fairly limited, is it because the size of the APX
> register state is the same or less than the legacy MPX state?

Well, that was one reason the MPX location was _chosen_ for APX. Had APX
been bigger, it the MPX location would obviously not have been an
option. Had it been way smaller, using the MPX location would be OK.

> Also, what other options does the kernel have to handle this?

The kernel could _probably_ just disable the MPX states and favor using
APX. But, honestly, if this ever happens it's going to be because some
silly VMM is enumerating all the features it knows of and doesn't have
logic to make APX and MPX mutually exclusive.

In that case, we want the VMM to get fixed pronto, so papering over the
issue is not the best idea. Spitting out a warning and disabling XSAVE
but still booting sounds like a good balance of being annoying, but not
being _as_ annoying as a BUG_ON() or breaking the boot.