linux-kernel - Re: [9/8] KVM: x86: limit MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL access based on CPUID availability

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Date:   Tue, 30 Jan 2018 09:38:27 -0800
From:   Jim Mattson <jmattson@...gle.com>
To:     David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
Cc:     Mihai Carabas <mihai.carabas@...cle.com>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        kvm list <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
        Radim Krčmář <rkrcmar@...hat.com>,
        Liran Alon <liran.alon@...cle.com>,
        Anthony Liguori <aliguori@...zon.com>,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "the arch/x86 maintainers" <x86@...nel.org>,
        Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>
Subject: Re: [9/8] KVM: x86: limit MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL access based on CPUID availability

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 9:14 AM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2018-01-30 at 08:57 -0800, Jim Mattson wrote:
>> It's really hard to tell which patches are being proposed for which
>> repositories, but assuming that everything else is correct, I don't
>> think your condition is adequate. What if the physical CPU and the
>> virtual CPU both have CPUID.(EAX=7H,ECX=0):EDX[26], but only the
>> physical CPU has CPUID.(EAX=7H,ECX=0):EDX[27]? If the guest has write
>> access to MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL, it can set MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL[1]
>> (STIBP), even though setting that bit in the guest should raise #GP.
>
> Everything we're talking about here is for tip/x86/pti. Which I note
> has just updated to be 4.15-based, although I thought it was going to
> stay on 4.14 for now. So I've updated my tree at
> http://git.infradead.org/linux-retpoline.git/shortlog/refs/heads/ibpb
> accordingly.
>
> You can always write to the STIBP bit without a #GP even when it's not
> advertised/available.

Oops. Yes, you're right. It's writing the IBRS bit when only STIBP is
available that results in a #GP.

> There's a possibility that we'll want to always trap and *prevent*
> that, instead of passing through — because doing so will also have an
> effect on the HT siblings. But as discussed, I wanted to get the basics
> working before exploring the complex IBRS/STIBP interactions. This much
> should be OK to start with.