linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/2] x86/speculation: Support "Enhanced IBRS" on future CPUs

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Date:   Tue, 13 Feb 2018 10:53:54 +0000
From:   David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:     Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>, tglx@...utronix.de,
        x86@...nel.org, kvm@...r.kernel.org, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, arjan.van.de.ven@...el.com,
        dave.hansen@...el.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] x86/speculation: Support "Enhanced IBRS" on future
 CPUs

On Tue, 2018-02-13 at 11:41 +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> You have my vote. :)  Really, IBRS_ALL makes no sense and it would be
> nice to know _why_ Intel is pushing something that makes no sense.

No, IBRS_ALL *does* make sense. It's not a complete fix, but it's as
much of a fix as they should shoe-horn into the generation of CPUs
which are currently going to the fabs.

With IBRS_ALL they presumably add tags to the predictions with the VMX
mode and ring, to give complete protection against predictions being
used in a more privileged mode. That saves us from having to do
retpoline, or the horrid old IBRS-as-barrier crap. Or any of the other
as-yet-incomplete Skylake hacks.

But we *do* still need the IBPB on context/VM switch. Because they
*haven't* yet managed to tag with VMID/PCID and/or do appropriate
flushing (on VMPTRLD, CR3 load, etc.). That will have to wait until
hardware which is even further out. But it's a bone of contention that
they haven't even defined the bit which will *advertise* this future
behaviour.

As it stands though, as a stop-gap solution IBRS_ALL isn't completely
senseless.

It *is* a shame that they didn't make the IBRS bit in SPEC_CTRL a no-op 
on CPUs with IBRS_ALL, but there are apparently technical reasons for
that on a certain subset of CPUs.

Again, having relatively simple patches to KVM which to tolerate the
IBRS bit *not* being a no-op is what makes the difference between us
accepting that, and demanding a new 'IBRS_ALL_UNCONDITIONAL' bit for
the CPUs which *aren't* in that "certain subset".

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