Re: [Xen-devel] Single step in HVM domU on Intel machine may see wrong DB6

["Zhang, Yang Z" <yang.z.zhang@xxxxxxxxx>]

Juergen Gross wrote on 2014-02-20:
> Hi,

Hi, Juergen

> 
> I think I've found a bug in debug trap handling in the Xen hypervisor 
> in case of a HVM domu using single stepping:
> 
> Debug registers are restored on vcpu switch only if db7 has any debug 
> events activated or if the debug registers are marked to be used by 
> the domU. This leads to problems if the domU uses single stepping and 
> vcpu switch occurs between the single step trap and reading of db6 in 
> the guest. db6 contents (single step indicator) are lost in this case.
> 
> Jan suggested to intercept the debug trap in the hypervisor and mark 
> the debug registers to be used by the domU to enable saving and 
> restoring the debug registers in case of a context switch. I used the 
> attached patch (applies to Xen 4.2.3) to verify this solution and it 
> worked (without the patch a test was able to reproduce the bug once in 
> about 3 hours, with the patch the test ran for more than 12 hours without 
> problem).
> 
> Obviously the patch isn't the final one, as I deactivated the "monitor trap 
> flag"
> feature to avoid any strange dependencies. Jan wanted someone from the 
> VMX folks to put together a proper fix to avoid overlooking some corner case.
> 

Thanks for reporting this issue. 
Actually, I don't know the scenario that you saw this issue. Are you using 
single step inside guest? Or running gdb to debug VM remotely?

> 
> Juergen
>


Best regards,
Yang


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