linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] efi: discover ESRT table on Xen PV too

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Date:   Wed, 19 Aug 2020 09:20:59 +0200
From:   Jan Beulich <jbeulich@...e.com>
To:     Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@...rix.com>
Cc:     Marek Marczykowski-Górecki 
        <marmarek@...isiblethingslab.com>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@...nel.org>, linux-efi@...r.kernel.org,
        norbert.kaminski@...eb.com, xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org,
        open list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] efi: discover ESRT table on Xen PV too

On 18.08.2020 14:47, Roger Pau Monné wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 02:01:35PM +0200, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 11:00:13AM +0200, Roger Pau Monné wrote:
>>> On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 02:19:49AM +0200, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
>>>> In case of Xen PV dom0, Xen passes along info about system tables (see
>>>> arch/x86/xen/efi.c), but not the memory map from EFI.
>>>
>>> I think that's because the memory map returned by
>>> XENMEM_machine_memory_map is in e820 form, and doesn't contain the
>>> required information about the EFI regions due to the translation done
>>> by efi_arch_process_memory_map in Xen?
>>
>> Yes, I think so.
>>
>>>> This makes sense
>>>> as it is Xen responsible for managing physical memory address space.
>>>> In this case, it doesn't make sense to condition using ESRT table on
>>>> availability of EFI memory map, as it isn't Linux kernel responsible for
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> PV dom0 is kind of special in that regard as it can create mappings to
>>> (almost) any MMIO regions, and hence can change it's memory map
>>> substantially.
>>
>> Do you mean PV dom0 should receive full EFI memory map? Jan already
>> objected this as it would be a layering violation.
> 
> dom0 is already capable of getting the native e820 memory map using
> XENMEM_machine_memory_map, I'm not sure why allowing to return the
> memory map in EFI form would be any different (or a layering
> violation in the PV dom0 case).

The EFI memory map exposes more information than the E820 one, and
this extra information should remain private to Xen if at all
possible. I actually think that exposing the raw E820 map was a
layering violation, too. Instead hypercalls should have been added
for the specific legitimate uses that Dom0 may have for the memmap.

Jan