linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6 1/1] x86: kvm: svm: set up ERAPS support for guests

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Message-ID: <718b02d4cfa56a65cb2383a0e57ca988defc036b.camel@amd.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2025 14:41:12 +0000
From: "Shah, Amit" <Amit.Shah@....com>
To: "seanjc@...gle.com" <seanjc@...gle.com>, "andrew.cooper3@...rix.com"
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 1/1] x86: kvm: svm: set up ERAPS support for guests

On Mon, 2025-11-24 at 16:40 +0000, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 24/11/2025 4:15 pm, Shah, Amit wrote:
> > On Thu, 2025-11-20 at 12:11 -0800, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > > > 2. Hosts that disable NPT: the ERAPS feature flushes the RSB
> > > > entries on
> > > >    several conditions, including CR3 updates.  Emulating
> > > > hardware
> > > >    behaviour on RSB flushes is not worth the effort for NPT=off
> > > > case,
> > > >    nor is it worthwhile to enumerate and emulate every trigger
> > > > the
> > > >    hardware uses to flush RSB entries.  Instead of identifying
> > > > and
> > > >    replicating RSB flushes that hardware would have performed
> > > > had
> > > > NPT
> > > >    been ON, do not let NPT=off VMs use the ERAPS features.
> > > The emulation requirements are not limited to shadow paging. 
> > > From
> > > the APM:
> > > 
> > >   The ERAPS feature eliminates the need to execute CALL
> > > instructions
> > > to clear
> > >   the return address predictor in most cases. On processors that
> > > support ERAPS,
> > >   return addresses from CALL instructions executed in host mode
> > > are
> > > not used in
> > >   guest mode, and vice versa. Additionally, the return address
> > > predictor is
> > >   cleared in all cases when the TLB is implicitly invalidated
> > > (see
> > > Section 5.5.3 “TLB
> > >   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > >   Management,” on page 159) and in the following cases:
> > > 
> > >   • MOV CR3 instruction
> > >   • INVPCID other than single address invalidation (operation
> > > type 0)
> > > 
> > > Yes, KVM only intercepts MOV CR3 and INVPCID when NPT is disabled
> > > (or
> > > INVPCID is
> > > unsupported per guest CPUID), but that is an implementation
> > > detail,
> > > the instructions
> > > are still reachable via emulator, and KVM needs to emulate
> > > implicit
> > > TLB flush
> > > behavior.
> > > 
> > > So punting on emulating RAP clearing because it's too hard is not
> > > an
> > > option.  And
> > > AFAICT, it's not even that hard.
> > I didn't mean on punting it in the "it's too hard" sense, but in
> > the
> > sense that we don't know all the details of when hardware decides
> > to do
> > a flush; and even if triggers are mentioned in this APM today,
> > future
> > changes to microcode or APM docs might reveal more triggers that we
> > need to emulate and account for.  There's no way to track such
> > changes,
> > so my thinking is that we should be conservative and not assume
> > anything.
> 
> But this *is* the problem.  The APM says that OSes can depend on this
> property for safety, and does not provide enough information for
> Hypervisors to make it safe.

That's certainly true - that's driving my reluctance to perform the
emulation or in enabling it for cases that aren't completely clear.

> ERAPS is a bad spec.  It should not have gotten out of the door.
> 
> A better spec would say "clears the RAP on any MOV to CR3" and
> nothing else.
> 
> The fact that it might happen microarchitecturally in other cases
> doesn't matter; what matters is what OSes can architecturally depend
> on,
> and right now that that explicitly includes "unspecified cases in NDA
> documents".

To be honest, I haven't seen the mention of those unspecified cases or
NDA documents.

However, at least for the case of an NPT guest, the hypervisor does not
need to do anything special (other than handle nested guests as this
patch does).

		Amit