Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v3 for-2.9 0/3] q35: add negotiable broadcast SMI

[Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>]

On 25/11/2016 15:10, Igor Mammedov wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Nov 2016 03:55:29 -0500 (EST)
> Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>>> if 0x30000 were covered by SMRR range, then OSPM wouldn't able to
>>> place its own code there and there wouldn't be any need in side interfaces
>>> to put and get CPU in/from some undefined by spec state (parked).
>>>
>>> But above would imply a large block allocated at 0x30000 to fit all
>>> possible CPUs+1, not sure if it's doable (maybe edk2 wouldn't have
>>> big issues with reserving large block in lowmem).  
>>
>> If you mean that the default SMRR range would include 0x30000 for an hotplugged
>> CPU, that would work but it is a significant departure from real hardware.
>> I'd rather avoid that.
> 
> But that's guest side only solution to guest problem, that won't require
> any assistance from QEMU/KVM.

No, I don't think it can be guest-only.  The initial value of SMRRs is
undefined, and SMRRs are per processor.  The newly-hotplugged CPU has no
SMRRs defined when it is started up.

> Baremetal would also benefit from it as it won't need to implement unpark
> logic anymore. it should also work for existing HW that has unpark logic.
> 
> Do you have any pointers to how hardware does unparking now?

The firmware tells the BMC to do it.  I don't know what the firmware-BMC
interface looks like.

>>> It looks like we need only SMM accessible guest/host interface to make
>>> CPU unparking secure or cover default SMBASE by SMRR.  
>>
>> Yes, unparking would be accessible only from SMM if the unparking feature
>> is negotiated.
> 
> I suppose we could check in MMIO handler that all CPUs are in SMM mode
> before allowing unparking or ignore command if they are not.
> 
> For compat reasons unpark should be optin feature (i.e. firmware should
> explicitly enable it to avoid breaking existing configurations (SeaBIOS))

Yes, of course---that's why I'm bringing up in the context of this series.

Paolo