Re: [Xen-devel] [ARM] Native application design and discussion (I hope)

[Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 9 May 2017, Dario Faggioli wrote:
> > > And it should not be hard to give such code access to the context
> > > of
> > > the vCPU that was previously running (in x86, given we implement
> > > what
> > > we call lazy context switch, it's most likely still loaded in the
> > > pCPU!).
> > 
> > I agree with Stefano, switching to the idle vCPU is a pretty bad
> > idea.
> > 
> > the idle vCPU is a fake vCPU on ARM to stick with the common code
> > (we 
> > never leave the hypervisor). In the case of the EL0 app, we want to 
> > change exception level to run the code with lower privilege.
> > 
> > Also IHMO, it should only be used when there are nothing to run and
> > not 
> > re-purposed for running EL0 app.
> > 
> It's already purposed for running when there is nothing to do _or_ when
> there are tasklets.
> 
> I do see your point about privilege level, though. And I agree with
> George that it looks very similar to when, in the x86 world, we tried
> to put the infra together for switching to Ring3 to run some pieces of
> Xen code.

Right, and just to add to it, context switching to the idle vcpu has a
cost, but it doesn't give us any security benefits whatsever. If Xen is
going to spend time on context switching, it is better to do it in a
way that introduces a security boundary.

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