Re: [PATCH v15 29/41] KVM: SEV: Synchronize MSR_IA32_XSS from the GHCB when it's valid

Sean Christopherson
2025-09-18T20:44:15Z

On Thu, Sep 18, 2025, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2025, John Allen wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 05:55:33PM -0500, John Allen wrote:
> > > Interesting, I see "Guest CPUID doesn't have XSAVES" times the number of
> > > cpus followed by "XSS already set to val = 0, eliding updates" times the
> > > number of cpus. This is with host tracing only. I can try with guest
> > > tracing too in the morning.
> >
> > Ok, I think I see the problem. The cases above where we were seeing the
> > added print statements from kvm_set_msr_common were not situations where
> > we were going through the __kvm_emulate_msr_write via
> > sev_es_sync_from_ghcb. When we call __kvm_emulate_msr_write from this
> > context, we never end up getting to kvm_set_msr_common because we hit
> > the following statement at the top of svm_set_msr:
> >
> > if (sev_es_prevent_msr_access(vcpu, msr))
> > return vcpu->kvm->arch.has_protected_state ? -EINVAL : 0;
>
> Gah, I was looking for something like that but couldn't find it, obviously.
>
> > So I'm not sure if this would force using the original method of
> > directly setting arch.ia32_xss or if there's some additional handling
> > here that we need in this scenario to allow the msr access.
>
> Does this fix things? If so, I'll slot in a patch to extract setting XSS to
> the helper, and then this patch can use that API. I like the symmetry between
> __kvm_set_xcr() and __kvm_set_xss(), and I especially like not doing a generic
> end-around on svm_set_msr() by calling kvm_set_msr_common() directly.

Scratch that, KVM supports intra-host (and inter-host?) migration of SEV-ES
guests and so needs to allow the host to save/restore XSS, otherwise a guest
that *knows* its XSS hasn't change could get stale/bad CPUID emulation if the
guest doesn't provide XSS in the GHCB on every exit.

So while seemingly hacky, I'm pretty sure the right solution is actually:

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c
index cabe1950b160..d48bf20c865b 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c
@@ -2721,8 +2721,8 @@ static int svm_get_feature_msr(u32 msr, u64 *data)
static bool sev_es_prevent_msr_access(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu,
struct msr_data *msr_info)
{
- return sev_es_guest(vcpu->kvm) &&
- vcpu->arch.guest_state_protected &&
+ return sev_es_guest(vcpu->kvm) && vcpu->arch.guest_state_protected &&
+ msr_info->index != MSR_IA32_XSS &&
!msr_write_intercepted(vcpu, msr_info->index);
}

Side topic, checking msr_write_intercepted() is likely wrong. It's a bad
heuristic for "managed in the VMSA". MSRs that _KVM_ loads into hardware and
context switches should still be accessible. I haven't looked to see if this is
a problem in practice.

>
> diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> index 945f7da60107..ace9f321d2c9 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h
> @@ -2213,6 +2213,7 @@ unsigned long kvm_get_cr8(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu);
> void kvm_lmsw(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, unsigned long msw);
> int __kvm_set_xcr(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 index, u64 xcr);
> int kvm_emulate_xsetbv(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu);
> +int __kvm_set_xss(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 xss);
>
> int kvm_get_msr_common(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct msr_data *msr);
> int kvm_set_msr_common(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct msr_data *msr);
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> index 94d9acc94c9a..462aebc54135 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> @@ -3355,7 +3355,7 @@ static void sev_es_sync_from_ghcb(struct vcpu_svm *svm)
> __kvm_set_xcr(vcpu, 0, kvm_ghcb_get_xcr0(svm));
>
> if (kvm_ghcb_xss_is_valid(svm))
> - __kvm_emulate_msr_write(vcpu, MSR_IA32_XSS, kvm_ghcb_get_xss(svm));
> + __kvm_set_xss(vcpu, kvm_ghcb_get_xss(svm));
>
> /* Copy the GHCB exit information into the VMCB fields */
> exit_code = kvm_ghcb_get_sw_exit_code(svm);
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> index 5bbc187ab428..9b81e92a8de5 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
> @@ -1313,6 +1313,22 @@ int kvm_emulate_xsetbv(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
> }
> EXPORT_SYMBOL_FOR_KVM_INTERNAL(kvm_emulate_xsetbv);
>
> +int __kvm_set_xss(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 xss)
> +{
> + if (!guest_cpuid_has(vcpu, X86_FEATURE_XSAVES))
> + return KVM_MSR_RET_UNSUPPORTED;
> +
> + if (xss & ~vcpu->arch.guest_supported_xss)
> + return 1;
> + if (vcpu->arch.ia32_xss == xss)
> + return 0;
> +
> + vcpu->arch.ia32_xss = xss;
> + vcpu->arch.cpuid_dynamic_bits_dirty = true;
> + return 0;
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(__kvm_set_xss);
> +
> static bool kvm_is_valid_cr4(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, unsigned long cr4)
> {
> return __kvm_is_valid_cr4(vcpu, cr4) &&
> @@ -4119,16 +4135,7 @@ int kvm_set_msr_common(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct msr_data *msr_info)
> }
> break;
> case MSR_IA32_XSS:
> - if (!guest_cpuid_has(vcpu, X86_FEATURE_XSAVES))
> - return KVM_MSR_RET_UNSUPPORTED;
> -
> - if (data & ~vcpu->arch.guest_supported_xss)
> - return 1;
> - if (vcpu->arch.ia32_xss == data)
> - break;
> - vcpu->arch.ia32_xss = data;
> - vcpu->arch.cpuid_dynamic_bits_dirty = true;
> - break;
> + return __kvm_set_xss(vcpu, data);
> case MSR_SMI_COUNT:
> if (!msr_info->host_initiated)
> return 1;