Re: [kvm-unit-tests 02/13] x86: AMD SEV-ES: Setup #VC exception handler for AMD SEV-ES

[Marc Orr <marcorr@google.com>]

On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 8:30 AM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 04, 2022, Marc Orr wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 2:55 AM Joerg Roedel <jroedel@suse.de> wrote:
> > >         3) The firmware #VC handler might use state which is not
> > >            available anymore after ExitBootServices.
> >
> > Of all the issues listed, this one seems the most serious.
> >
> > >         4) If the firmware uses the kvm-unit-test GHCB after
> > >            ExitBootServices, it has the get the GHCB address from the
> > >            GHCB MSR, requiring an identity mapping.
> > >            Moreover it requires to keep the address of the GHCB in the
> > >            MSR at all times where a #VC could happen. This could be a
> > >            problem when we start to add SEV-ES specific tests to the
> > >            unit-tests, explcitily testing the MSR protocol.
> >
> > Ack. I'd think we could require tests to save/restore the GHCB MSR.
> >
> > > It is easy to violate this implicit protocol and breaking kvm-unit-tests
> > > just by a new version of OVMF being used. I think that is not a very
> > > robust approach and a separate #VC handler in the unit-test framework
> > > makes sense even now.
> >
> > Thanks for the explanation! I hope we can keep the UEFI #VC handler
> > working, because like I mentioned, I think this work can be used to
> > test that code inside of UEFI. But I guess time will tell.
> >
> > Of all the points listed above, I think point #3 is the most
> > concerning. The others seem like they can be managed.
>
>   5) Debug.  I don't want to have to reverse engineer assembly code to understand
>      why a #VC handler isn't doing what I expect, or to a debug the exchanges
>      between guest and host.

Ack. But this can also be viewed as a benefit. Because the bug is
probably something that should be followed up and fixed inside of
UEFI.

And that's my end goal. Can we reuse this work to test the #VC handler
in the UEFI?

This shouldn't be onerous. Because the #VC should follow the APM and
GHCB specs. And both UEFI and kvm-unit-tests #VC handlers should be
coded to those specs. If they're not, then one of them has a bug.

> On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 4:52 AM Varad Gautam <varad.gautam@suse.com> wrote:
> > If --amdsev-efi-vc is passed during ./configure, the tests will
> > continue using the UEFI #VC handler.
>
> Why bother?  I would prefer we ditch the UEFI #VC handler entirely and not give
> users the option to using anything but the built-in handler.  What do we gain
> other than complexity?

See above. If we keep the ability to run off the UEFI #VC handler then
we can get continuous testing running inside of Google to verify the
UEFI used to launch every SEV VM on Google cloud.