Re: [PATCH v4 3/3] arm64: kvm: inject SError with user space specified syndrome

James Morse
2017-07-04T10:14:34Z

Hi gengdongjiu,

Can you give us a specific example of an error you are trying to handle?
How would a non-KVM user space process handle the error?

KVM-users should be regular user space processes, we should not have a KVM-way
and everyone-else-way of handling errors.

On 04/07/17 05:46, gengdongjiu wrote:
> On 2017/7/3 16:39, Christoffer Dall wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 08:46:39PM +0800, Dongjiu Geng wrote:
>>> when SError happen, kvm notifies user space to record the CPER,
>>> user space specifies and passes the contents of ESR_EL1 on taking
>>> a virtual SError interrupt to KVM, KVM enables virtual system
>>> error or asynchronous abort with this specifies syndrome. This
>>> patch modify the world-switch to restore VSESR_EL2, VSESR_EL2
>>> saves the virtual SError syndrome, it becomes the ESR_EL1 value when
>>> HCR_EL2.VSE injects an SError. This register is added by the
>>> RAS Extensions.
>>
>> This commit message is confusing and doesn't help me understand the
>> patch.
> (1) what is the rationale for the guest OS SError interrupt(SEI) handling in the RAS solution?

> a). In the firmware-first RAS solution, when guest OS happen a SError interrupt (SEI), it will firstly trap to EL3(SCR_EL3.EA = 1);
> b). The firmware logs, triages, and delegates the error exception to the hypervisor. As the error came from guest OS EL1, firmware
> does by faking an SError interrupt exception entry to EL2.
> c). Control transfers to the hypervisor's delegated error recovery agent.Because HCR_EL2.AMO is set to 1, the hypervisor can use a
> Virtual SError interrupt to delegate an asynchronous abort to EL1, by setting HCR_EL2.VSE to 1 and using VESR_EL2 to pass syndrome.

So (a): a physical-CPU hardware error occurs, and then (c) we tell Qemu/kvmtool
via a KVM-specific API.

Don't do this, it doesn't work for non-KVM users. You are exposing host-specific
implementation details to user space. What if I discover the same error via a
Polling GHES, or one of the IRQ flavours?

User space should not have to know, or care, how linux is notified about APEI
RAS errors.

> (2) what is this patch mainly do?
> As mentioned above, the hypervisor needs to enable virtual SError and pass the virtual syndrome to the guest OS.
>
> a). when Control transfers to the hypervisor from firmware by faking an SError interrupt, the hypervisor delivered the syndrome_info(esr_el2) and
> host VA address( Qemu translate this VA address to the virtual machine physical address(IPA)) using below new added "serror_intr" struct.
> /* KVM_EXIT_SERROR_INTR */
> struct {
> __u32 syndrome_info;
> __u64 address;
> } serror_intr;

This is for a guest exit to host user-space. Here you are telling Qemu that a
physical CPU hardware error occurred. Qemu/kvmtool should not be expected to
parse the ESR, this is the job of the operating system.

When you're using ACPI firmware-first, SError/SEI is just a notification, the
important data is in the CPER records, which Qemu can't access, (and should be
processed by Linux APEI code).

It looks like you've calculated an address from FAR_EL2/HPFAR_EL2. For an
SError, these are meaningless.

(These registers hold real values for Synchronous External Abort, but for
firmware-first we should prefer the CPER records.)

> b). Qemu gets the address(host VA) delivered by KVM, translate this host VA address to virtual machine physical address(IPA), and runtime record this virtual
> machine physical address(IPA) to the guest OS's APEI table.

I agree with this step, but you're acting on the wrong data. (You're converting
fault_ipa -> virtual address -> fault_ipa, something isn't right ...)

Qemu should react to a signal like BUS_MCEERR_A{R,O} from memory_failure(). This
mechanism serves all user space processes, not just kvm users. This is where the
user-space virtual address should come from. Qemu/kvmtool have to generate the
guest IPA once they discover the affected memory was presented to the guest
through KVM.

Your KVM-specific mechanism exposes too much raw information (raw ESR values to
user space), and only serves applications using KVM.

If there is another type of CPER record where we should notify userspace, please
do it from mm/memory-failure.c, drivers/acpi/apei/ghes.c or
drivers/firmware/efi/cper.c. These should consider all user-space applications,
not just users of KVM, and not just on arm64.

> c). Qemu gets the syndrome_info delivered by KVM, it refers to this syndrome value(but can be different from it) to specify the virtual SError interrupt's syndrome through setting VESR_EL2.

'but can be different from it' is because a classification step is required, the
operating system should do this. We should only signal Qemu/kvmtool for errors
that can actually be handled. Some APEI notifications may be for corrected
errors, (I would hope these always come through a polled GHES), Linux shouldn't
interrupt user space for a corrected error.

For memory errors we already have BUS_MCEERR_AR - action-required, and
BUS_MCEERR_AO - action-optional.

For a TLB error, (Table 250 of UEFI 2.6), what is Qemu expected to do? Linux has
to classify the error and handle it as far as possible. In most cases the error
is either handled (no notification required), or fatal. Memory errors are the
only example I've found so far where an application can do additional work to
handle the error.

Can you give us a specific example of an error you are trying to handle?
How would a non-KVM user space process handle the error?

Thanks,

James