linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5 4/5] KVM: VMX: Allow direct access to MSR_IA32_SPEC

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Date:   Wed, 31 Jan 2018 14:56:42 -0800
From:   "Raj, Ashok" <ashok.raj@...el.com>
To:     KarimAllah Ahmed <karahmed@...zon.de>
Cc:     kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
        Asit Mallick <asit.k.mallick@...el.com>,
        Arjan Van De Ven <arjan.van.de.ven@...el.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Jun Nakajima <jun.nakajima@...el.com>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        David Woodhouse <dwmw@...zon.co.uk>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 4/5] KVM: VMX: Allow direct access to
 MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL

Hi Karim

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 08:37:46PM +0100, KarimAllah Ahmed wrote:
> [ Based on a patch from Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@...el.com> ]
> 
> Add direct access to MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL for guests. This is needed for
> guests that will only mitigate Spectre V2 through IBRS+IBPB and will not
> be using a retpoline+IBPB based approach.

With these changes SPEC_CTRL is properly exposed to the guest when using
latest Qemu.

> 
> To avoid the overhead of atomically saving and restoring the
> MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL for guests that do not actually use the MSR, only
> add_atomic_switch_msr when a non-zero is written to it.
> 
> No attempt is made to handle STIBP here, intentionally. Filtering STIBP
> may be added in a future patch, which may require trapping all writes
> if we don't want to pass it through directly to the guest.
> 
> [dwmw2: Clean up CPUID bits, save/restore manually, handle reset]
>