Re: [for-6.0 v5 11/13] spapr: PEF: prevent migration

["Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <dgilbert@redhat.com>]

* David Gibson (david@gibson.dropbear.id.au) wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 11:25:17AM +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 12:42:26PM +0000, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> > > * Cornelia Huck (cohuck@redhat.com) wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 5 Jan 2021 12:41:25 -0800
> > > > Ram Pai <linuxram@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 11:56:14AM +0100, Halil Pasic wrote:
> > > > > > On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 10:40:26 -0800
> > > > > > Ram Pai <linuxram@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > > > The main difference between my proposal and the other proposal is...
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > >   In my proposal the guest makes the compatibility decision and acts
> > > > > > >   accordingly.  In the other proposal QEMU makes the compatibility
> > > > > > >   decision and acts accordingly. I argue that QEMU cannot make a good
> > > > > > >   compatibility decision, because it wont know in advance, if the guest
> > > > > > >   will or will-not switch-to-secure.
> > > > > > >   
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > You have a point there when you say that QEMU does not know in advance,
> > > > > > if the guest will or will-not switch-to-secure. I made that argument
> > > > > > regarding VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM (iommu_platform) myself. My idea
> > > > > > was to flip that property on demand when the conversion occurs. David
> > > > > > explained to me that this is not possible for ppc, and that having the
> > > > > > "securable-guest-memory" property (or whatever the name will be)
> > > > > > specified is a strong indication, that the VM is intended to be used as
> > > > > > a secure VM (thus it is OK to hurt the case where the guest does not
> > > > > > try to transition). That argument applies here as well.  
> > > > > 
> > > > > As suggested by Cornelia Huck, what if QEMU disabled the
> > > > > "securable-guest-memory" property if 'must-support-migrate' is enabled?
> > > > > Offcourse; this has to be done with a big fat warning stating
> > > > > "secure-guest-memory" feature is disabled on the machine.
> > > > > Doing so, will continue to support guest that do not try to transition.
> > > > > Guest that try to transition will fail and terminate themselves.
> > > > 
> > > > Just to recap the s390x situation:
> > > > 
> > > > - We currently offer a cpu feature that indicates secure execution to
> > > >   be available to the guest if the host supports it.
> > > > - When we introduce the secure object, we still need to support
> > > >   previous configurations and continue to offer the cpu feature, even
> > > >   if the secure object is not specified.
> > > > - As migration is currently not supported for secured guests, we add a
> > > >   blocker once the guest actually transitions. That means that
> > > >   transition fails if --only-migratable was specified on the command
> > > >   line. (Guests not transitioning will obviously not notice anything.)
> > > > - With the secure object, we will already fail starting QEMU if
> > > >   --only-migratable was specified.
> > > > 
> > > > My suggestion is now that we don't even offer the cpu feature if
> > > > --only-migratable has been specified. For a guest that does not want to
> > > > transition to secure mode, nothing changes; a guest that wants to
> > > > transition to secure mode will notice that the feature is not available
> > > > and fail appropriately (or ultimately, when the ultravisor call fails).
> > > > We'd still fail starting QEMU for the secure object + --only-migratable
> > > > combination.
> > > > 
> > > > Does that make sense?
> > > 
> > > It's a little unusual; I don't think we have any other cases where
> > > --only-migratable changes the behaviour; I think it normally only stops
> > > you doing something that would have made it unmigratable or causes
> > > an operation that would make it unmigratable to fail.
> > 
> > I agree,  --only-migratable is supposed to be a *behavioural* toggle
> > for QEMU. It must /not/ have any impact on the guest ABI.
> > 
> > A management application needs to be able to add/remove --only-migratable
> > at will without changing the exposing guest ABI.
> 
> At the qemu level, it sounds like the right thing to do is to fail
> outright if all of the below are true:
>  1. --only-migratable is specified
>  2. -cpu host is specified
>  3. unpack isn't explicitly disabled
>  4. the host CPU actually does have the unpack facility
> 
> That can be changed if & when migration support is added for PV.

That sounds right to me.

Dave

> 
> -- 
> David Gibson			| I'll have my music baroque, and my code
> david AT gibson.dropbear.id.au	| minimalist, thank you.  NOT _the_ _other_
> 				| _way_ _around_!
> http://www.ozlabs.org/~dgibson


-- 
Dr. David Alan Gilbert / dgilbert@redhat.com / Manchester, UK