Re: [PATCH RFC v1 0/9] KVM: SVM: Defer page pinning for SEV guests

From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
To: Marc Orr <marcorr@google.com>
Cc: Peter Gonda <pgonda@google.com>,
	"Nikunj A. Dadhania" <nikunj@amd.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
	Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@redhat.com>,
	Wanpeng Li <wanpengli@tencent.com>,
	Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>, Joerg Roedel <joro@8bytes.org>,
	Brijesh Singh <brijesh.singh@amd.com>,
	Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@amd.com>,
	Bharata B Rao <bharata@amd.com>,
	"Maciej S . Szmigiero" <mail@maciej.szmigiero.name>,
	Mingwei Zhang <mizhang@google.com>,
	David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>,
	kvm list <kvm@vger.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC v1 0/9] KVM: SVM: Defer page pinning for SEV guests
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2022 18:02:41 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Ykc+QapbAdpd41PK@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAA03e5GXmo33OOyxb08L5Ztz1dP-OSsPzeo0HK73p9ShvnMmRg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 01, 2022, Marc Orr wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 12:01 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com> wrote:
> > Yep, that's a big reason why I view purging the existing SEV memory management as
> > a long term goal.  The other being that userspace obviously needs to be updated to
> > support UPM[*].   I suspect the only feasible way to enable this for SEV/SEV-ES
> > would be to restrict it to new VM types that have a disclaimer regarding additional
> > requirements.
> >
> > [*] I believe Peter coined the UPM acronym for "Unmapping guest Private Memory".  We've
> >     been using it iternally for discussion and it rolls off the tongue a lot easier than
> >     the full phrase, and is much more precise/descriptive than just "private fd".
> 
> Can we really "purge the existing SEV memory management"? This seems
> like a non-starter because it violates userspace API (i.e., the
> ability for the userspace VMM to run a guest without
> KVM_FEATURE_HC_MAP_GPA_RANGE). Or maybe I'm not quite following what
> you mean by purge.

I really do mean purge, but I also really do mean "long term", as in 5+ years
(probably 10+ if I'm being realistic).

Removing support is completely ok, as is changing the uABI, the rule is that we
can't break userspace.  If all users are migrated to private-fd, e.g. by carrots
and/or sticks such as putting the code into maintenance-only mode, then at some
point in the future there will be no users left to break and we can drop the
current code and make use of private-fd mandatory for SEV/SEV-ES guests.

> Assuming that UPM-based lazy pinning comes together via a new VM type
> that only supports new images based on a minimum kernel version with
> KVM_FEATURE_HC_MAP_GPA_RANGE, then I think this would like as follows:
> 
> 1. Userspace VMM: Check SEV VM type. If type is legacy SEV type then
> do upfront pinning. Else, skip up front pinning.

Yep, if by legacy "SEV type" you mean "SEV/SEV-ES guest that isn't required to
use MAP_GPA_RANGE", which I'm pretty sure you do based on #3.

> 2. KVM: I'm not sure anything special needs to happen here. For the
> legacy VM types, it can be configured to use legacy memslots,
> presumably the same as non-CVMs will be configured. For the new VM
> type, it should be configured to use UPM.

Correct, for now, KVM does nothing different for SEV/SEV-ES guests.

> 3. Control plane (thing creating VMs): Responsible for not allowing
> legacy SEV images (i.e., images without KVM_FEATURE_HC_MAP_GPA_RANGE)
> with the new SEV VM types that use UPM and have support for demand
> pinning.
> 
> Sean: Did I get this right?

Yep.