Re: [PATCH 1/8] KVM: nSVM: Sync next_rip field from vmcb12 to vmcb02

From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
To: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: "Maciej S. Szmigiero" <mail@maciej.szmigiero.name>,
	Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@redhat.com>,
	Wanpeng Li <wanpengli@tencent.com>,
	Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>, Joerg Roedel <joro@8bytes.org>,
	kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/8] KVM: nSVM: Sync next_rip field from vmcb12 to vmcb02
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2022 16:44:27 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YmA4a8jwcL0PzkIr@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <41d956ab-3d25-2c2f-8b1a-2c49e03b4df4@redhat.com>

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 4/20/22 18:15, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > > > Let's just require X86_FEATURE_NRIPS, either in general or just to
> > > > enable nested virtualiazation
> > > 👍
> > Hmm, so requiring NRIPS for nested doesn't actually buy us anything.  KVM still
> > has to deal with userspace hiding NRIPS from L1, so unless I'm overlooking something,
> > the only change would be:
> > 
> > diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/nested.c b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/nested.c
> > index bdf8375a718b..7bed4e05aaea 100644
> > --- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/nested.c
> > +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/nested.c
> > @@ -686,7 +686,7 @@ static void nested_vmcb02_prepare_control(struct vcpu_svm *svm,
> >           */
> >          if (svm->nrips_enabled)
> >                  vmcb02->control.next_rip    = svm->nested.ctl.next_rip;
> > -       else if (boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_NRIPS))
> > +       else
> >                  vmcb02->control.next_rip    = vmcb12_rip;
> > 
> >          if (is_evtinj_soft(vmcb02->control.event_inj)) {
> > 
> > And sadly, because SVM doesn't provide the instruction length if an exit occurs
> > while vectoring a software interrupt/exception, making NRIPS mandatory doesn't buy
> > us much either.
> > 
> > I believe the below diff is the total savings (plus the above nested thing) against
> > this series if NRIPS is mandatory (ignoring the setup code, which is a wash).  It
> > does eliminate the rewind in svm_complete_soft_interrupt() and the funky logic in
> > svm_update_soft_interrupt_rip(), but that's it AFAICT.  The most obnoxious code of
> > having to unwind EMULTYPE_SKIP when retrieving the next RIP for software int/except
> > injection doesn't go away:-(
> > 
> > I'm not totally opposed to requiring NRIPS, but I'm not in favor of it either.
> 
> Yeah, you're right.  However:
> 
> * the rewind might already be worth it;

FWIW, I don't actually care about supporting nrips=false, it's the ability to test
EMULTYPE_SKIP that I find valuable.  I also find the extra perspective of how RIP
interacts with software interrupts/exceptions to be very helpful/educational, though
that's of debatable value going forward.

> * if we require NRIPS for nested, we can also assume that the SVM save state
> data has a valid next_rip; even if !svm->nrips_enabled.  There's the pesky
> issue of restoring from an old system that did not have NRIPS, but let's
> assume for now that NRIPS was set on the source as well.

How about I throw a Not-signed-off-by patch on the end of the series to make NRIPS
mandatory, that way we (in theory) have a fully functional snapshot for nrips=false
if we want to go back in time.  And we probably need to give a deprecation grace
period, i.e. wait a release or two before disappearing nrips?