Re: [PATCH] Add microcode patch level dummy

[Alexander Graf <agraf@suse.de>]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Alexander Graf wrote:
>> Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>  
>>> Alexander Graf wrote:
>>>    
>>>> VMware ESX checks if the microcode level is correct when using a
>>>> barcelona CPU, in
>>>> order to see if it actually can use SVM. Let's tell it we're on the
>>>> safe side...
>>>>         
>>> Sounds like you're able to boot ESX?  Are you able to run a guest yet?
>>>     
>>
>> The moment you wrote the mail I just managed to get ReactOS running in
>> ESX. It does not use SVM yet though. I wonder when/if ESX actually does
>> use SVM.
>>   
>
> I'm pretty certain that if ESX detects that it is running under ESX,
> it disables SVM/VT.  There was a fair bit of noise a few months ago
> because a certain beta version of VMware didn't do this which meant
> you could no longer run ESX nested.  They quickly fixed that.
>
> I'd try disabling vmport and the hypervisor present bit.

Now - that's the issue. VMware tries to detect the CPU TSC speed and
matches if that's a multiple of the bus speed (66Mhz). If not, it panics.
The only way I found around this was to expose the TSC frequency bits to
ESX using the VMware backdoor - but now it thinks it's actually running
inside VMware!

Alex