On 10/1/2024 9:12 AM, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 9/30/24 22:00, Xin Li (Intel) wrote:
>> The per CPU variable cea_exception_stacks contains per CPU stacks for
>> NMI, #DB and #DF, which is referenced in KVM to set host FRED RSP[123]
>> each time a vCPU is loaded onto a CPU, thus it needs to be exported.
>
> Nit: It's not obvious how 'cea_exception_stacks' get used in this
> series. It's never referenced explicitly.
>
> I did figure it out by looking for 'RSP[123]' references, but a much
> better changelog would be something like:
>
> The per CPU array 'cea_exception_stacks' points to per CPU
> stacks for NMI, #DB and #DF. It is normally referenced via the
> #define: __this_cpu_ist_top_va().
>
> FRED introduced new fields in the host-state area of the VMCS
> for stack levels 1->3 (HOST_IA32_FRED_RSP[123]). KVM must
> populate these each time a vCPU is loaded onto a CPU.
>
Yeah, this is way clearer.
> See how that explicitly gives the reader greppable strings for
> "__this_cpu_ist_top_va" and "HOST_IA32_FRED_RSP"? That makes it much
> easier to figure out what is going on.
Nice for a maintainer in 20 years :)
>
> I was also momentarily confused about why these loads need to be done on
> _every_ vCPU load. I think it's because the host state can change as
> the vCPU moves around to different physical CPUs and
> __this_cpu_ist_top_va() can and will change. But it's a detail that I
> think deserves to be explained in the changelog. There is also this
> note in vmx_vcpu_load_vmcs():
Makes sense to me.
>
>> /*
>> * Linux uses per-cpu TSS and GDT, so set these when switching
>> * processors. See 22.2.4.
>> */
>
> which makes me think that it might not be bad to pull *all* of the
> per-cpu VMCS field population code out into a helper since the reasoning
> of why these need to be repopulated is identical.
>
> Also, what's the purpose of clearing GUEST_IA32_FRED_RSP[123] at
> init_vmcs() time? I would have thought that those values wouldn't
> matter until the VMCS gets loaded at vmx_vcpu_load_vmcs() when they are
> overwritten anyway. Or, I could be just totally misunderstanding how
> KVM consumes the VMCS. :)
I don't see any misunderstanding. However we just do what the SDM
claims, even it seems that it's not a must *logically*.
FRED spec says:
The RESET state of each of the new MSRs is zero. INIT does not change
the value of the new MSRs
Thanks!
Xin