linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86: disable on 32-bit unless CONFIG

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Wed, 28 Sep 2022 20:44:22 +0300
From:   Maxim Levitsky <mlevitsk@...hat.com>
To:     Sean Christopherson <seanjc@...gle.com>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kvm@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86: disable on 32-bit unless CONFIG_BROKEN

On Wed, 2022-09-28 at 16:12 +0000, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2022, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > On 9/28/22 09:10, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> > > I also think that outside KVM developers nobody should be using KVM on 32 bit host.
> > > 
> > > However for_developement_  I think that 32 bit KVM support is very useful, as it
> > > allows to smoke test the support for 32 bit nested hypervisors, which I do once in a while,
> > > and can even probably be useful to some users (e.g running some legacy stuff in a VM,
> > > which includes a hypervisor, especially to run really legacy OSes / custom bare metal software,
> > > using an old hypervisor) - or in other words, 32 bit nested KVM is mostly useless, but
> > > other 32 bit nested hypervisors can be useful.
> > > 
> > > Yes, I can always use an older 32 bit kernel in a guest with KVM support, but as long
> > > as current kernel works, it is useful to use the same kernel on host and guest.
> > 
> > Yeah, I would use older 32 bit kernels just like I use RHEL4 to test PIT
> > reinjection. :)  But really the ultimate solution to this would be to
> > improve kvm-unit-tests so that we can compile vmx.c and svm.c for 32-bit.
> 
> Agreed.  I too use 32-bit KVM to validate KVM's handling of 32-bit L1 hypervisors,
> but the maintenance cost is painfully high.
> 

But is it actually? I test it routinely and it it does work quite well IMHO.
I don't remember that there were that much breakage lately in this area.

As far as my opinion goes I do volunteer to test this code more often,
and I do not want to see the 32 bit KVM support be removed *yet*.

Best regards,
	Maxim Levitsky