Re: [PATCH] kvm: x86: rewrite kvm_spec_ctrl_valid_bits

From: Maxim Levitsky <mlevitsk@redhat.com>
To: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org,
	"maintainer:X86 ARCHITECTURE (32-BIT AND 64-BIT)"
	<x86@kernel.org>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Joerg Roedel <joro@8bytes.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Wanpeng Li <wanpengli@tencent.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
	Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@redhat.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] kvm: x86: rewrite kvm_spec_ctrl_valid_bits
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2020 14:35:59 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <f3c243b06b5acfea9ed4e4242d8287c7169ef1be.camel@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200707081444.GA7417@linux.intel.com>

On Tue, 2020-07-07 at 01:14 -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> Aren't you supposed to be on vacation? :-)
> 
> On Tue, Jul 07, 2020 at 10:04:22AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > On 07/07/20 08:11, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > > One oddity with this whole thing is that by passing through the MSR, KVM is
> > > allowing the guest to write bits it doesn't know about, which is definitely
> > > not normal.  It also means the guest could write bits that the host VMM
> > > can't.
> > 
> > That's true.  However, the main purpose of the kvm_spec_ctrl_valid_bits
> > check is to ensure that host-initiated writes are valid; this way, you
> > don't get a #GP on the next vmentry's WRMSR to MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL.
> > Checking the guest CPUID bit is not even necessary.
> 
> Right, what I'm saying is that rather than try and decipher specs to
> determine what bits are supported, just throw the value at hardware and
> go from there.  That's effectively what we end up doing for the guest writes
> anyways.
> 
> Actually, the current behavior will break migration if there are ever legal
> bits that KVM doesn't recognize, e.g. guest writes a value that KVM doesn't
> allow and then migration fails when the destination tries to stuff the value
> into KVM.

After thinking about this, I am thinking that we should apply similiar logic
as done with the 'cpu-pm' related features.
This way the user can choose between passing through the IA32_SPEC_CTRL,
(and in this case, we can since the user choose it, pass it right away, and thus
avoid using kvm_spec_ctrl_valid_bits completely), and between correctness,
in which case we can always emulate this msr, and therefore check all the bits,
both regard to guest and host supported values.
Does this makes sense, or do you think that this is overkill?

One thing for sure, we currently have a bug about wrong #GP in case STIBP is supported,
but IBRS isn't. I don't mind fixing it in any way that all of you agree upon.

Best regards,
	Maxim Levitsky