Re: [RFC] CPUID usage for interaction between Hypervisors and Linux.

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> Alok Kataria wrote:
> 
> No, we're not getting anywhere.  This is an outright broken idea.  The 
> space is too small to be able to chop up in this way, and the number of 
> vendors too large to be able to do it without having a central oversight.
> 
> The only way this can work is by having explicit positive identification 
> of each group of leaves with a signature.  If there's a recognizable 
> signature, then you can inspect the rest of the group; if not, then you 
> can't.  That way, you can avoid any leaf usage which doesn't conform to 
> this model, and you can also simultaneously support multiple hypervisor 
> ABIs.  It also accommodates existing hypervisor use of this leaf space, 
> even if they currently use a fixed location within it.
> 
> A concrete counter-proposal:

Mmm, cpuid bikeshedding :-)

> The space 0x40000000-0x400000ff is reserved for hypervisor usage.
> 
> This region is divided into 16 16-leaf blocks.  Each block has the 
> structure:
> 
> 0x400000x0:
>     eax: max used leaf within the leaf block (max 0x400000xf)

Why even bother with this?  It doesn't seem necessary in your proposal.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori