linux-kernel - Re: [RFC KVM 00/27] KVM Address Space Isolation

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Date:   Mon, 13 May 2019 11:17:14 -0700
From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
To:     Alexandre Chartre <alexandre.chartre@...cle.com>
Cc:     Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        Radim Krcmar <rkrcmar@...hat.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrew Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        kvm list <kvm@...r.kernel.org>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
        jan.setjeeilers@...cle.com, Liran Alon <liran.alon@...cle.com>,
        Jonathan Adams <jwadams@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC KVM 00/27] KVM Address Space Isolation

> I expect that the KVM address space can eventually be expanded to include
> the ioctl syscall entries. By doing so, and also adding the KVM page table
> to the process userland page table (which should be safe to do because the
> KVM address space doesn't have any secret), we could potentially handle the
> KVM ioctl without having to switch to the kernel pagetable (thus effectively
> eliminating KPTI for KVM). Then the only overhead would be if a VM-Exit has
> to be handled using the full kernel address space.
>

In the hopefully common case where a VM exits and then gets re-entered
without needing to load full page tables, what code actually runs?
I'm trying to understand when the optimization of not switching is
actually useful.

Allowing ioctl() without switching to kernel tables sounds...
extremely complicated.  It also makes the dubious assumption that user
memory contains no secrets.