linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5 31/32] x86: Add sysfs support for Secure Memory Encryption

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Date:   Thu, 18 May 2017 19:01:53 +0200
From:   Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
To:     Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>
Cc:     linux-arch@...r.kernel.org, linux-efi@...r.kernel.org,
        kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
        kexec@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        kasan-dev@...glegroups.com, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        iommu@...ts.linux-foundation.org, Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
        Radim Krčmář <rkrcmar@...hat.com>,
        Toshimitsu Kani <toshi.kani@....com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Matt Fleming <matt@...eblueprint.co.uk>,
        "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>,
        Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        Larry Woodman <lwoodman@...hat.com>,
        Brijesh Singh <brijesh.singh@....com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@...tuozzo.com>,
        Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>,
        Dave Young <dyoung@...hat.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 31/32] x86: Add sysfs support for Secure Memory
 Encryption

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 04:22:12PM -0500, Tom Lendacky wrote:
> Add sysfs support for SME so that user-space utilities (kdump, etc.) can
> determine if SME is active.

But why do user-space tools need to know that?

I mean, when we load the kdump kernel, we do it with the first kernel,
with the kexec_load() syscall, AFAICT. And that code does a lot of
things during that init, like machine_kexec_prepare()->init_pgtable() to
prepare the ident mapping of the second kernel, for example.

What I'm aiming at is that the first kernel knows *exactly* whether SME
is enabled or not and doesn't need to tell the second one through some
sysfs entries - it can do that during loading.

So I don't think we need any userspace things at all...

Or?

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

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