linux/arch/x86/kvm/vmx
Sean Christopherson bf09fb6cba KVM: VMX: Stop context switching MSR_IA32_UMWAIT_CONTROL
Remove support for context switching between the guest's and host's
desired UMWAIT_CONTROL.  Propagating the guest's value to hardware isn't
required for correct functionality, e.g. KVM intercepts reads and writes
to the MSR, and the latency effects of the settings controlled by the
MSR are not architecturally visible.

As a general rule, KVM should not allow the guest to control power
management settings unless explicitly enabled by userspace, e.g. see
KVM_CAP_X86_DISABLE_EXITS.  E.g. Intel's SDM explicitly states that C0.2
can improve the performance of SMT siblings.  A devious guest could
disable C0.2 so as to improve the performance of their workloads at the
detriment to workloads running in the host or on other VMs.

Wholesale removal of UMWAIT_CONTROL context switching also fixes a race
condition where updates from the host may cause KVM to enter the guest
with the incorrect value.  Because updates are are propagated to all
CPUs via IPI (SMP function callback), the value in hardware may be
stale with respect to the cached value and KVM could enter the guest
with the wrong value in hardware.  As above, the guest can't observe the
bad value, but it's a weird and confusing wart in the implementation.

Removal also fixes the unnecessary usage of VMX's atomic load/store MSR
lists.  Using the lists is only necessary for MSRs that are required for
correct functionality immediately upon VM-Enter/VM-Exit, e.g. EFER on
old hardware, or for MSRs that need to-the-uop precision, e.g. perf
related MSRs.  For UMWAIT_CONTROL, the effects are only visible in the
kernel via TPAUSE/delay(), and KVM doesn't do any form of delay in
vcpu_vmx_run().  Using the atomic lists is undesirable as they are more
expensive than direct RDMSR/WRMSR.

Furthermore, even if giving the guest control of the MSR is legitimate,
e.g. in pass-through scenarios, it's not clear that the benefits would
outweigh the overhead.  E.g. saving and restoring an MSR across a VMX
roundtrip costs ~250 cycles, and if the guest diverged from the host
that cost would be paid on every run of the guest.  In other words, if
there is a legitimate use case then it should be enabled by a new
per-VM capability.

Note, KVM still needs to emulate MSR_IA32_UMWAIT_CONTROL so that it can
correctly expose other WAITPKG features to the guest, e.g. TPAUSE,
UMWAIT and UMONITOR.

Fixes: 6e3ba4abce ("KVM: vmx: Emulate MSR IA32_UMWAIT_CONTROL")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Jingqi Liu <jingqi.liu@intel.com>
Cc: Tao Xu <tao3.xu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>
Message-Id: <20200623005135.10414-1-sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
2020-06-22 20:54:57 -04:00
..
capabilities.h KVM: x86/pmu: Support full width counting 2020-06-01 04:26:09 -04:00
evmcs.c KVM: eVMCS: check if nesting is enabled 2020-04-23 09:04:56 -04:00
evmcs.h KVM: nVMX: properly handle errors in nested_vmx_handle_enlightened_vmptrld() 2020-03-16 18:19:30 +01:00
nested.c The X86 entry, exception and interrupt code rework 2020-06-13 10:05:47 -07:00
nested.h KVM: nVMX: Remove unused 'ops' param from nested_vmx_hardware_setup() 2020-05-15 12:26:24 -04:00
ops.h KVM: VMX: Drop redundant capability checks in low level INVVPID helpers 2020-04-20 17:26:08 -04:00
pmu_intel.c KVM: VMX: Always treat MSR_IA32_PERF_CAPABILITIES as a valid PMU MSR 2020-06-04 12:20:44 -04:00
vmcs12.c KVM: nVMX: Remove non-functional "support" for CR3 target values 2020-04-21 09:13:09 -04:00
vmcs12.h KVM: nVMX: Remove non-functional "support" for CR3 target values 2020-04-21 09:13:09 -04:00
vmcs_shadow_fields.h KVM: Fix some out-dated function names in comment 2020-01-21 13:57:27 +01:00
vmcs.h KVM: VMX: Add helpers to identify interrupt type from intr_info 2020-06-15 12:12:20 -04:00
vmenter.S KVM: VMX: Remove unneeded __ASM_SIZE usage with POP instruction 2020-05-15 12:26:13 -04:00
vmx.c KVM: VMX: Stop context switching MSR_IA32_UMWAIT_CONTROL 2020-06-22 20:54:57 -04:00
vmx.h KVM: VMX: Properly handle kvm_read/write_guest_virt*() result 2020-06-08 07:59:08 -04:00