linux-kernel - Re: [RESEND PATCH 1/3] x86: Adding structs to reflect cpuid fields

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Date:	Fri, 19 Sep 2014 09:58:15 +0200
From:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
To:	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>
Cc:	Nadav Amit <namit@...technion.ac.il>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
	kvm <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>
Subject: Re: [RESEND PATCH 1/3] x86: Adding structs to reflect cpuid fields

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 03:36:43PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> We're talking about the case where the field is not reserved anymore and
> we _know_ that the vendor has just decided to grow the bitfield that
> precedes it.

We're talking about the case where you assumed that a reserved bit is 0
which is an unsafe assumption, the least.

> As soon as we know that the field is not reserved anymore, we
> obviously rely on reserved bits being zero in older processors, and in
> future processors from other vendors.

Again, this is an unsafe assumption.

> The trivial example is feature bits like XSAVE. We query them all the
> time without checking the family when they were first introduced,
> don't we?

The feature bits would obviously be 0 if features are not supported.

However, even there

"16 - Reserved - Do not count on the value."

I'm quoting Intel's CPUID doc 241618-037 from 2011 (there might be a
newer one though), the CPUID(1).ECX description.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.
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