Re: [PATCH] x86/intel_rdt: use rdmsr_safe() to workaround AWS host issue

Borislav Petkov
2019-01-10T10:53:50Z

On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 11:32:47AM +0100, Vitaly Kuznetsov wrote:
> The other thing is: how can we be sure that there's no hypervisor
> exposing these feature already? Even if open-source hypervisors like
> KVM/Xen don't do it it doesn't prove anything: there are numerous
> proprietary hypervisors and who knows what they do.

Well, we have this thing called CPUID which enumerates features -
regardless of running on baremetal or on a hypervisor. But apparently
some Intel CPUs dropped the ball there. Which caused the f*ckup we are
in right now.

If you really want to not foreclose that feature for guests - and it
sounds like you do - the other thing I can think of is an early quirk
*setting* those feature bits for those Intel CPUs which "forgot" to set
them and then changing the resctrl code to test CPUID bits first.

This way, the kernel is presented with a unified view on what is
supported by the underlying machine - and that machine can be a HV or
baremetal - kernel doesn't care.

> The original issue which triggered the discussion was discovered on
> AWS Xen where the host is buggy and I suggested a simple short-term
> workaround

And I'm sick'n'tired of simple-short term workarounds and band-aids and
the kernel always bending because people dropped the ball and those
being perpetuated, because, sure, we'll add one more "fix" on the pile,
who cares... :-\

If AWS xen is broken, then that should be fixed - not the kernel.

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

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