Re: [PATCH v2 0/4] Enable SMEP CPU Feature

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>]

* Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 05/17/2011 01:46 PM, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >>
> >>  We could support it as a non-default feature, but that reduces its utility.
> >
> >It would be a nice touch for tools/kvm/: we would use KVM_GET_SREGS and
> >KVM_GET_SREGS to twiddle CR4.SMEP, even without the guest explicitly doing it.
> >
> >A quick glance suggests that it could be done straight away in
> >tools/kvm/kvm-cpu.c::kvm_cpu__setup_sregs() during vcpu setup, and hopefully
> >that cr4 value survives boot and ends up in the guest kernel's mmu_cr4_features
> >mask shadow register.
> 
> Depends if the guest uses a read-modify-write pattern or not.  We could do it 
> transparently in kvm.ko, since the real cr4 need not corresponds to the guest 
> notion (for example, we often set cr0.wp or cr0.ts even though the guest 
> wants them clear).

Oh, being transparent is a nice touch when it comes to security measures 
(catching attackers who think there's no SMEP and such) - but that would need 
KVM support and a new ioctl to configure it, right?

Thanks,

	Ingo