linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/3] xen: remove some checks for always present Xen features

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Message-ID: <08e3fcf1-dabc-c550-f76c-47a78a12274b@suse.com>
Date:   Thu, 22 Apr 2021 17:23:53 +0200
From:   Jan Beulich <jbeulich@...e.com>
To:     Juergen Gross <jgross@...e.com>
Cc:     Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com>,
        Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@...nel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
        xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] xen: remove some checks for always present Xen
 features

On 22.04.2021 17:17, Juergen Gross wrote:
> On 22.04.21 17:16, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> On 22.04.2021 17:10, Juergen Gross wrote:
>>> Some features of Xen can be assumed to be always present, so add a
>>> central check to verify this being true and remove the other checks.
>>>
>>> Juergen Gross (3):
>>>    xen: check required Xen features
>>>    xen: assume XENFEAT_mmu_pt_update_preserve_ad being set for pv guests
>>>    xen: assume XENFEAT_gnttab_map_avail_bits being set for pv guests
>>
>> I wonder whether it's a good idea to infer feature presence from
>> version numbers. If (at some point in the past) you had inferred
>> gnttab v2 being available by version, this would have been broken
>> by its availability becoming controllable by a command line option
>> in Xen.
> 
> I'm testing the feature to be really present when booting and issue a
> message if it is not there.

And how does this help if the feature really isn't there yet other code
assumes it is?

Jan