Re: [PATCH v2 1/1] KVM: arm64: allow the VM to select DEVICE_* and NORMAL_NC for IO memory

[Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>]

On Wed, Dec 06, 2023 at 02:49:02PM +0000, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 05, 2023 at 03:48:22PM -0400, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 05, 2023 at 07:24:37PM +0000, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > On Tue, Dec 05, 2023 at 12:43:18PM -0400, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > > > What if we change vfio-pci to use pgprot_device() like it already
> > > > really should and say the pgprot_noncached() is enforced as
> > > > DEVICE_nGnRnE and pgprot_device() may be DEVICE_nGnRE or NORMAL_NC?
> > > > Would that be acceptable?
> > > 
> > > pgprot_device() needs to stay as Device, otherwise you'd get speculative
> > > reads with potential side-effects.
> > 
> > I do not mean to change pgprot_device() I mean to detect the
> > difference via pgprot_device() vs pgprot_noncached(). They put a
> > different value in the PTE that we can sense. It is very hacky.
> 
> Ah, ok, it does look hacky though (as is the alternative of coming up
> with a new specific pgprot_*() that KVM can treat differently).
> 
> BTW, on those Mellanox devices that require different attributes within
> a BAR, do they have a problem with speculative reads causing
> side-effects? 

Yes. We definitely have had that problem in the past on older
devices. VFIO must map the BAR using pgprot_device/noncached() into
the VMM, no other choice is functionally OK.

Only some pages can safely tolerate speculative reads and the guest
driver knows which they are.

Jason