Re: [RFC 3/4] HVM x86 deprivileged mode: Code for switching into/out of deprivileged mode

[Ian Campbell <ian.campbell@citrix.com>]

On Thu, 2015-08-06 at 21:55 +0100, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 06/08/15 17:45, Ben Catterall wrote:
> > The process to switch into and out of deprivileged mode can be likened 
> > to
> > setjmp/longjmp.
> > 
> > To enter deprivileged mode, we take a copy of the stack from the 
> > guest's
> > registers up to the current stack pointer. This allows us to restore 
> > the stack
> > when we have finished the deprivileged mode operation, meaning we can 
> > continue
> > execution from that point. This is similar to if a context switch had 
> > happened.
> > 
> > To exit deprivileged mode, we copy the stack back, replacing the 
> > current stack.
> > We can then continue execution from where we left off, which will 
> > unwind the
> > stack and free up resources. This method means that we do not need to
> > change any other code paths and its invocation will be transparent to 
> > callers.
> > This should allow the feature to be more easily deployed to different 
> > parts
> > of Xen.
> > 
> > Note that this copy of the stack is per-vcpu but, it will contain per
> > -pcpu data.
> > Extra work is needed to properly migrate vcpus between pcpus.
> 
> Under what circumstances do you see there being persistent state in the
> depriv area between calls, given that the calls are synchronous from VM
> actions?

Would we not want to keep (some of) the device model's state in a depriv
area? e.g. anything which is purely internal to the DM which is therefore
only accessed from depriv-land?

Ian.