Re: [PATCH v3 06/23] kvm: arm64: Add kvm-arm.protected early kernel parameter

Mark Rutland
2020-12-01T14:59:49Z

On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 02:43:49PM +0000, David Brazdil wrote:
> > > > be just me, but if you agree please update so that it doesn't give remote
> > > > idea that it is not valid on VHE enabled hardware.
> > > >
> > > > I was trying to run this on the hardware and was trying to understand the
> > > > details on how to do that.
> > >
> > > I see what you're saying, but !CONFIG_ARM64_VHE isn't accurate either. The
> > > option makes sense if:
> > > 1) all cores booted in EL2
> > > == is_hyp_mode_available()
> > > 2) ID_AA64MMFR1_EL1.VH=0 or !CONFIG_ARM64_VHE
> > > == !is_kernel_in_hyp_mode()
> > >
> > > The former feels implied for KVM, the latter could be 'Valid if the kernel
> > > is running in EL1'? WDYT?
> >
> > I reckon we can avoid the restriction if we instead add an early stub
> > like with have for KASLR. That way we could parse the command line
> > early, and if necessary re-initialize EL2 and drop to EL1 before the
> > main kernel has to make any decisions about how to initialize things.
> > That would allow us to have a more general kvm-arm.mode option where a
> > single kernel Image could support:
> >
> > * "protected" mode on nVHE or VHE HW
> > * "nvhe" mode on nVHE or VHE HW
> > * "vhe" mode on VHE HW
> >
> > ... defaulting to VHE/nVHE modes depending on HW support.
> >
> > That would also be somewhat future-proof if we have to add other
> > variants of protected mode in future, as we could extend the mode option
> > with parameters for each mode.
>
> Agreed that 'mode' is a more future-proof flag and I would very much love to
> have an option to force nVHE on VHE HW. I however expect that the early stub
> would not be a trivial addition and would not want to get into that in this
> series. Could we agree on 'protected' as the only supported value for the time
> being?

Sure, that works for me.

Thanks,
Mark.