Re: [PATCH] kvm: x86: disable KVM_FAST_MMIO_BUS

["Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 03:30:31PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 16/08/2017 15:16, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 03:05:51PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> >> On 16/08/2017 14:58, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> >>> On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 01:22:49PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> >>>> Microsoft pointed out privately to me that KVM's handling of
> >>>> KVM_FAST_MMIO_BUS is invalid.  Using skip_emulation_instruction is invalid
> >>>> in EPT misconfiguration vmexit handlers, because neither EPT violations
> >>>> nor misconfigurations are listed in the manual among the VM exits that
> >>>> set the VM-exit instruction length field.
> >>>>
> >>>> While physical processors seem to set the field, this is not architectural
> >>>> and is just a side effect of the implementation.  I couldn't convince
> >>>> myself of any condition on the exit qualification where VM-exit
> >>>> instruction length "has" to be defined; there are no trap-like VM-exits
> >>>> that can be repurposed; and fault-like VM-exits such as descriptor-table
> >>>> exits provide no decoding information.  So I don't really see any elegant
> >>>> way to fix it except by disabling KVM_FAST_MMIO_BUS, which means virtio
> >>>> 1 will go slower.
> >>>
> >>> How about I will try asking Intel about it? If they can commit to length
> >>> being there in the future, we are all set.
> >>
> >> Nope, "I couldn't convince myself of any condition on the exit
> >> qualification where VM-exit instruction length "has" to be defined".  So
> >> assuming Intel can do it, it would only apply to future processors (2
> >> years+ for server SKUs).
> > 
> > Well maybe there's a reason it's actually working.  Let's see what can
> > be done.
> 
> Sure there is.  It just happens that the actual condition for VM-exit
> instruction length being set correctly is "the fault was taken after the
> accessing instruction has been decoded".  But there's no way according
> to the spec to detect whether that has happened.
> 
> While you can filter out instruction fetches, that's not enough.  A data
> read could happen because someone pointed the IDT to MMIO area, and who
> knows what the VM-exit instruction length points to in that case.

Interesting. We use it with MMIO so this kind of hack is not supposed to
work anyway. Does not seem to be worth slowing virtio for.


> >> Plus of course it wouldn't be guaranteed to work on nested.
> > 
> > Not sure I got this one.
> 
> Not all nested hypervisors are setting the VM-exit instruction length
> field on EPT violations, since it's documented not to be set.

I see. We could special case this by testing the hypervisor leaf
if we wanted to.

> >>>> Adding a hypercall or MSR write that does a fast MMIO write to a physical
> >>>> address would do it, but it adds hypervisor knowledge in virtio, including
> >>>> CPUID handling.
> >>>
> >>> Another issue is that it will break DPDK on virtio.
> >>
> >> Not break, just make it slower.
> > 
> > I thought hypercalls can only be triggered from ring 0, userspace can't call them.
> > Dod I get it wrong?
> 
> That's just a limitation that KVM makes on currently-defined hypercalls.
> 
> VMCALL causes a vmexit if executed from ring 3.
> 
> Paolo

OK but we will have to build our own protection mechanism then. With
MMIO we just used pagetables.

-- 
MST