Re: [PATCH RFC] KVM: x86: tell guests if the exposed SMT topology is trustworthy

Paolo Bonzini
2019-11-06T09:41:22Z

On 06/11/19 09:32, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>>> The only way virt topology can make any sense what so ever is if the
>>> vcpus are pinned to physical CPUs.
>>
>> This is a subset of the requirements for "trustworthy" SMT. You can have:
>>
>> - vCPUs pinned to two threads in the same core and exposed as multiple
>> cores in the guest
>
> Why the .... would one do anything like that?

If a vCPUs from a different guest could be pinned to a threads in the
same core as this guest (e.g. guests with an odd number of vCPUs), then
why not. Side-channel wise, you're screwed anyway.

>> - vCPUs from different guests pinned to two threads in the same core
>>
>> and that would be okay as far as KVM_HINTS_REALTIME is concerned, but
>> would still allow exploitation of side-channels, respectively within the
>> VM and between VMs.
>
> Hardly, RT really rather would not have SMT. SMT is pretty crap for
> determinism.

True, but not a problem as long as the guest knows that - it can ignore
one sibling for each core for RT tasks, and use hyperthreading for
non-RT and housekeeping tasks.

Paolo