Virtualization - Jun 2020 - Should SEV-ES #VC use IST? (Re: [PATCH] Allow RDTSC and RDTSCP from userspace)

Hi Peter,

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 12:45:59PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra
wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 11:45:19AM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> > Or maybe you have a better idea how to implement this, so I'd like
to
> > hear your opinion first before I spend too many days implementing
> > something.
> 
> OK, excuse my ignorance, but I'm not seeing how that IST shifting
> nonsense would've helped in the first place.
> 
> If I understand correctly the problem is:
> 
> 	<#VC>
> 	  shift IST
> 	  <NMI>
> 	    ... does stuff
> 	    <#VC> # again, safe because the shift
> 
> But what happens if you get the NMI before your IST adjustment?
The v3 patchset implements an unconditional shift of the #VC IST entry
in the NMI handler, before it can trigger a #VC exception.
> Either way around we get to fix this up in NMI (and any other IST
> exception that can happen while in #VC, hello #MC). And more complexity
> there is the very last thing we need :-(
Yes, in whatever way this gets implemented, it needs some fixup in the
NMI handler. But that can happen in C code, so it does not make the
assembly more complex, at least.
> There's no way you can fix up the IDT without getting an NMI first.
Not sure what you mean by this.
> This entire exception model is fundamentally buggered :-/
Regards,

	Joerg

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 01:11:07PM +0200, Joerg Roedel
wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 12:45:59PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 11:45:19AM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> > > Or maybe you have a better idea how to implement this, so I'd
like to
> > > hear your opinion first before I spend too many days implementing
> > > something.
> > 
> > OK, excuse my ignorance, but I'm not seeing how that IST shifting
> > nonsense would've helped in the first place.
> > 
> > If I understand correctly the problem is:
> > 
> > 	<#VC>
> > 	  shift IST
> > 	  <NMI>
> > 	    ... does stuff
> > 	    <#VC> # again, safe because the shift
> > 
> > But what happens if you get the NMI before your IST adjustment?
> 
> The v3 patchset implements an unconditional shift of the #VC IST entry
> in the NMI handler, before it can trigger a #VC exception.
Going by that other thread -- where you said that any memory access can
trigger a #VC, there just isn't such a guarantee.
> > Either way around we get to fix this up in NMI (and any other IST
> > exception that can happen while in #VC, hello #MC). And more
complexity
> > there is the very last thing we need :-(
> 
> Yes, in whatever way this gets implemented, it needs some fixup in the
> NMI handler. But that can happen in C code, so it does not make the
> assembly more complex, at least.
> 
> > There's no way you can fix up the IDT without getting an NMI
first.
> 
> Not sure what you mean by this.
I was talking about the case where #VC would try and fix up its own IST.

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 01:14:43PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra
wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 01:11:07PM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> > The v3 patchset implements an unconditional shift of the #VC IST entry
> > in the NMI handler, before it can trigger a #VC exception.
> 
> Going by that other thread -- where you said that any memory access can
> trigger a #VC, there just isn't such a guarantee.
As I wrote in the other mail, this can only happen when SNP gets enabled
(which is follow-on work to this) and is handled by a stack recursion
check in the #VC handler.

The reason I mentioned the #VC-anywhere case is to make it more clear
why #VC needs an IST handler.

Regards,

	Joerg