[RFC PATCH v2 00/38] Nested Virtualization on KVM/ARM

Jintack Lim
2017-07-19T02:23:05Z

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 12:58 PM, Jintack Lim <jintack.lim@linaro.org> wrote:
> Nested virtualization is the ability to run a virtual machine inside another
> virtual machine. In other words, it?s about running a hypervisor (the guest
> hypervisor) on top of another hypervisor (the host hypervisor).
>
> Supporting nested virtualization on ARM means that the hypervisor provides not
> only EL0/EL1 execution environment to VMs as it usually does but also the
> virtualization extensions including EL2 execution environment. Once the host
> hypervisor provides those execution environments to the VMs, then the guest
> hypervisor can run its own VMs (nested VMs) naturally.
>
> This series supports nested virtualization on arm64. ARM recently announced an
> extension (ARMv8.3) which has support for nested virtualization[1]. This patch
> set is based on the ARMv8.3 specification and tested on the FastModel with
> ARMv8.3 extension.
>
> The whole patch set to support nested virtualization is huge over 70
> patches, so I categorized them into four parts: CPU, memory, VGIC, and timer
> virtualization. This patch series is the first part.
>
> CPU virtualization patch series provides basic nested virtualization framework
> and instruction emulations including v8.1 VHE feature and v8.3 nested
> virtualization feature for VMs.
>
> This patch series again can be divided into four parts. Patch 1 to 5 introduces
> nested virtualization by discovering hardware feature, adding a kernel
> parameter and allowing the userspace to set the initial CPU mode to EL2.
>
> Patch 6 to 25 are to support the EL2 execution environment, the virtual EL2, to
> a VM on v8.0 architecture. We de-privilege the guest hypervisor and emulate the
> virtual EL2 mode in EL1 using the hardware features provided by ARMv8.3; The
> host hypervisor manages virtual EL2 register state for the guest hypervisor
> and shadow EL1 register state that reflects the virtual EL2 register state to
> run the guest hypervisor in EL1.
>
> Patch 26 to 33 add support for the virtual EL2 with Virtualization Host
> Extensions. These patches emulate newly defined registers and bits in v8.1 and
> allow the virtual EL2 to access EL2 register states via EL1 register accesses
> as in the real EL2.
>
> Patch 34 to 38 are to support for the virtual EL2 with nested virtualization.
> These enable recursive nested virtualization.
>
> This patch set is tested on the FastModel with the v8.3 extension for arm64 and
> a cubietruck for arm32. On the FastModel, the host and the guest kernels are
> compiled with and without VHE, so there are four combinations. I was able to
> boot SMP Linux in the nested VM on all four configurations and able to run
> hackbench. I also checked that regular VMs could boot when the nested
> virtualization kernel parameter was not set. On the cubietruck, I also verified
> that regular VMs could boot as well.
>
> I'll share my experiment setup shortly.

I summarized my experiment setup here.

https://github.com/columbia/nesting-pub/wiki/Nested-virtualization-on-ARM-setup

>
> Even though this work has some limitations and TODOs, I'd appreciate early
> feedback on this RFC. Specifically, I'm interested in:
>
> - Overall design to manage vcpu context for the virtual EL2
> - Verifying correct EL2 register configurations such as HCR_EL2, CPTR_EL2
> (Patch 30 and 32)
> - Patch organization and coding style

I also wonder if the hardware and/or KVM do not support nested
virtualization but the userspace uses nested virtualization option,
which one is better: giving an error or launching a regular VM
silently.

>
> This patch series is based on kvm/next d38338e.
> The whole patch series including memory, VGIC, and timer patches is available
> here:
>
> git at github.com:columbia/nesting-pub.git rfc-v2
>
> Limitations:
> - There are some cases that the target exception level of a VM is ambiguous when
> emulating eret instruction. I'm discussing this issue with Christoffer and
> Marc. Meanwhile, I added a temporary patch (not included in this
> series. f1beaba in the repo) and used 4.10.0 kernel when testing the guest
> hypervisor with VHE.
> - Recursive nested virtualization is not tested yet.
> - Other hypervisors (such as Xen) on KVM are not tested.
>
> TODO:
> - Submit memory, VGIC, and timer patches
> - Evaluate regular VM performance to see if there's a negative impact.
> - Test other hypervisors such as Xen on KVM
> - Test recursive nested virtualization
>
> v1-->v2:
> - Added support for the virtual EL2 with VHE
> - Rewrote commit messages and comments from the perspective of supporting
> execution environments to VMs, rather than from the perspective of the guest
> hypervisor running in them.
> - Fixed a few bugs to make it run on the FastModel.
> - Tested on ARMv8.3 with four configurations. (host/guest. with/without VHE.)
> - Rebased to kvm/next
>
> [1] https://www.community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/armv8-a-architecture-2016-additions
>
> Christoffer Dall (7):
> KVM: arm64: Add KVM nesting feature
> KVM: arm64: Allow userspace to set PSR_MODE_EL2x
> KVM: arm64: Add vcpu_mode_el2 primitive to support nesting
> KVM: arm/arm64: Add a framework to prepare virtual EL2 execution
> arm64: Add missing TCR hw defines
> KVM: arm64: Create shadow EL1 registers
> KVM: arm64: Trap EL1 VM register accesses in virtual EL2
>
> Jintack Lim (31):
> arm64: Add ARM64_HAS_NESTED_VIRT feature
> KVM: arm/arm64: Enable nested virtualization via command-line
> KVM: arm/arm64: Check if nested virtualization is in use
> KVM: arm64: Add EL2 system registers to vcpu context
> KVM: arm64: Add EL2 special registers to vcpu context
> KVM: arm64: Add the shadow context for virtual EL2 execution
> KVM: arm64: Set vcpu context depending on the guest exception level
> KVM: arm64: Synchronize EL1 system registers on virtual EL2 entry and
> exit
> KVM: arm64: Move exception macros and enums to a common file
> KVM: arm64: Support to inject exceptions to the virtual EL2
> KVM: arm64: Trap SPSR_EL1, ELR_EL1 and VBAR_EL1 from virtual EL2
> KVM: arm64: Trap CPACR_EL1 access in virtual EL2
> KVM: arm64: Handle eret instruction traps
> KVM: arm64: Set a handler for the system instruction traps
> KVM: arm64: Handle PSCI call via smc from the guest
> KVM: arm64: Inject HVC exceptions to the virtual EL2
> KVM: arm64: Respect virtual HCR_EL2.TWX setting
> KVM: arm64: Respect virtual CPTR_EL2.TFP setting
> KVM: arm64: Add macros to support the virtual EL2 with VHE
> KVM: arm64: Add EL2 registers defined in ARMv8.1 to vcpu context
> KVM: arm64: Emulate EL12 register accesses from the virtual EL2
> KVM: arm64: Support a VM with VHE considering EL0 of the VHE host
> KVM: arm64: Allow the virtual EL2 to access EL2 states without trap
> KVM: arm64: Manage the shadow states when virtual E2H bit enabled
> KVM: arm64: Trap and emulate CPTR_EL2 accesses via CPACR_EL1 from the
> virtual EL2 with VHE
> KVM: arm64: Emulate appropriate VM control system registers
> KVM: arm64: Respect the virtual HCR_EL2.NV bit setting
> KVM: arm64: Respect the virtual HCR_EL2.NV bit setting for EL12
> register traps
> KVM: arm64: Respect virtual HCR_EL2.TVM and TRVM settings
> KVM: arm64: Respect the virtual HCR_EL2.NV1 bit setting
> KVM: arm64: Respect the virtual CPTR_EL2.TCPAC setting
>
> Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 4 +
> arch/arm/include/asm/kvm_emulate.h | 17 ++
> arch/arm/include/asm/kvm_host.h | 15 +
> arch/arm64/include/asm/cpucaps.h | 3 +-
> arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h | 1 +
> arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_arm.h | 2 +
> arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_coproc.h | 3 +-
> arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_emulate.h | 56 ++++
> arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_host.h | 64 ++++-
> arch/arm64/include/asm/kvm_hyp.h | 24 --
> arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-hwdef.h | 6 +
> arch/arm64/include/asm/sysreg.h | 70 +++++
> arch/arm64/include/uapi/asm/kvm.h | 1 +
> arch/arm64/kernel/asm-offsets.c | 1 +
> arch/arm64/kernel/cpufeature.c | 11 +
> arch/arm64/kvm/Makefile | 5 +-
> arch/arm64/kvm/context.c | 346 +++++++++++++++++++++++
> arch/arm64/kvm/emulate-nested.c | 83 ++++++
> arch/arm64/kvm/guest.c | 2 +
> arch/arm64/kvm/handle_exit.c | 89 +++++-
> arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/entry.S | 13 +
> arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/hyp-entry.S | 2 +-
> arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c | 33 ++-
> arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/sysreg-sr.c | 117 ++++----
> arch/arm64/kvm/inject_fault.c | 12 -
> arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c | 63 +++++
> arch/arm64/kvm/reset.c | 8 +
> arch/arm64/kvm/sys_regs.c | 359 +++++++++++++++++++++++-
> arch/arm64/kvm/sys_regs.h | 8 +
> arch/arm64/kvm/trace.h | 43 ++-
> virt/kvm/arm/arm.c | 20 ++
> 31 files changed, 1363 insertions(+), 118 deletions(-)
> create mode 100644 arch/arm64/kvm/context.c
> create mode 100644 arch/arm64/kvm/emulate-nested.c
> create mode 100644 arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c
>
> --
> 1.9.1
>