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From: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
To: Jan Beulich <JBeulich@suse.com>
Cc: Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>,
	xen-devel <xen-devel@lists.xen.org>
Subject: Re: MSR_SPEC_CTRL intercept
Date: Thu, 24 May 2018 11:13:50 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <a2d33841-8159-fb72-0049-765dae4c18fc@citrix.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5B06742B02000078001C570A@prv1-mh.provo.novell.com>

On 24/05/18 09:13, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> On 24.05.18 at 00:09, <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com> wrote:
>> It is, as documented, not completely strictly true (according to the
>> latest revision of the spec), but is there deliberately to simply so we
>> don't give the guest implausible configurations.  There is not a
>> processor with STIBP but without IBRSB, nor is there one with SSBD
>> without STIBP or IBRSB, and it is unlikely that future processors would
>> change this arrangement.
> As pointed out elsewhere I believe this is a wrong dependency to make,
> even if perhaps current or past Intel docs suggest so (AMD ones don't
> for their versions of the features). Wile it may be the case that there's
> currently no case in practice with SSBD but no IBRSB, I don't see why
> this would need to remain that way. The two things are strictly
> independent.

Features will never disappear.  x86, more than most, maintains its
backwards compatibility.

> I very much think there should be an indicator of the MSR itself
> existing, set to the OR of any of the bits in the MSR that are valid.
> Shouldn't such a mask anyway be part of struct msr_domain_policy
> (as a companion to the current value of the MSR per vCPU)?

The only think this gets you is the ability to create implausible
combinations.

I don't think it is a useful or sensible use of time trying to support
combinations which will, most likely, never exist.  Certainly not for
combinations without a plausible usecase, as these will go stale very
quickly, given the churn in this area.

~Andrew

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  reply	other threads:[~2018-05-24 10:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2018-05-23 21:40 MSR_SPEC_CTRL intercept Boris Ostrovsky
2018-05-23 21:49 ` Andrew Cooper
2018-05-23 21:59   ` Boris Ostrovsky
2018-05-23 22:09     ` Andrew Cooper
2018-05-23 22:27       ` Boris Ostrovsky
2018-05-23 22:34         ` Andrew Cooper
2018-05-23 22:53           ` Boris Ostrovsky
2018-05-23 22:56             ` Andrew Cooper
2018-05-24  8:13       ` Jan Beulich
2018-05-24 10:13         ` Andrew Cooper [this message]
2018-05-24 10:23           ` Jan Beulich
2018-05-25 15:25             ` Andrew Cooper
2018-05-25 15:42               ` Jan Beulich

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