From: Jon Kohler <jon@nutanix.com>
To: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>,
kvm@vger.kernel.org, qemu-devel@nongnu.org
Cc: Jon Kohler <jon@nutanix.com>,
Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>,
Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Subject: [PATCH] i386/kvm: Expose ARCH_CAP_FB_CLEAR when invulnerable to MDS
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2025 13:25:57 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20251008202557.4141285-1-jon@nutanix.com> (raw)
Newer Intel hardware (Sapphire Rapids and higher) sets multiple MDS
immunity bits in MSR_IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES but lacks the hardware-level
MSR_ARCH_CAP_FB_CLEAR (bit 17):
ARCH_CAP_MDS_NO
ARCH_CAP_TAA_NO
ARCH_CAP_PSDP_NO
ARCH_CAP_FBSDP_NO
ARCH_CAP_SBDR_SSDP_NO
This prevents VMs with fb-clear=on from migrating from older hardware
(Cascade Lake, Ice Lake) to newer hardware, limiting live migration
capabilities. Note fb-clear was first introduced in v8.1.0 [1].
Expose MSR_ARCH_CAP_FB_CLEAR for MDS-invulnerable systems to enable
seamless migration between hardware generations.
Note: There is no impact when a guest migrates to newer hardware as
the existing bit combinations already mark the host as MMIO-immune and
disable FB_CLEAR operations in the kernel (see Linux's
arch_cap_mmio_immune() and vmx_update_fb_clear_dis()). See kernel side
discussion for [2] for additional context.
[1] 22e1094ca82 ("target/i386: add support for FB_CLEAR feature")
[2] https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/kvm/patch/20250401044931.793203-1-jon@nutanix.com/
Cc: Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Suggested-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jon Kohler <jon@nutanix.com>
---
target/i386/kvm/kvm.c | 17 +++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 17 insertions(+)
diff --git a/target/i386/kvm/kvm.c b/target/i386/kvm/kvm.c
index 6a3a1c1ed8..610d786310 100644
--- a/target/i386/kvm/kvm.c
+++ b/target/i386/kvm/kvm.c
@@ -657,6 +657,23 @@ uint64_t kvm_arch_get_supported_msr_feature(KVMState *s, uint32_t index)
must_be_one = (uint32_t)value;
can_be_one = (uint32_t)(value >> 32);
return can_be_one & ~must_be_one;
+ case MSR_IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES:
+ /*
+ * Special handling for fb-clear bit in ARCH_CAPABILITIES MSR.
+ * KVM will only report the bit if it is enabled in the host,
+ * but, for live migration capability purposes, we want to
+ * expose the bit to the guest even if it is disabled in the
+ * host, as long as the host itself is not vulnerable to
+ * the issue that the fb-clear bit is meant to mitigate.
+ */
+ if ((value & MSR_ARCH_CAP_MDS_NO) &&
+ (value & MSR_ARCH_CAP_TAA_NO) &&
+ (value & MSR_ARCH_CAP_SBDR_SSDP_NO) &&
+ (value & MSR_ARCH_CAP_FBSDP_NO) &&
+ (value & MSR_ARCH_CAP_PSDP_NO)) {
+ value |= MSR_ARCH_CAP_FB_CLEAR;
+ }
+ return value;
default:
return value;
--
2.43.0
next reply other threads:[~2025-10-08 19:48 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-10-08 20:25 Jon Kohler [this message]
2025-10-09 7:12 ` [PATCH] i386/kvm: Expose ARCH_CAP_FB_CLEAR when invulnerable to MDS Pawan Gupta
2025-10-11 7:02 ` Paolo Bonzini
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