Re: [PATCH v2] xen/arm: Convert runstate address during hypcall

[Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

On 28.07.2020 17:52, Bertrand Marquis wrote:
> At the moment on Arm, a Linux guest running with KTPI enabled will
> cause the following error when a context switch happens in user mode:
> (XEN) p2m.c:1890: d1v0: Failed to walk page-table va 0xffffff837ebe0cd0
>
> The error is caused by the virtual address for the runstate area
> registered by the guest only being accessible when the guest is running
> in kernel space when KPTI is enabled.
>
> To solve this issue, this patch is doing the translation from virtual
> address to physical address during the hypercall and mapping the
> required pages using vmap. This is removing the conversion from virtual
> to physical address during the context switch which is solving the
> problem with KPTI.
>
> This is done only on arm architecture, the behaviour on x86 is not
> modified by this patch and the address conversion is done as before
> during each context switch.
>
> This is introducing several limitations in comparison to the previous
> behaviour (on arm only):
> - if the guest is remapping the area at a different physical address Xen
> will continue to update the area at the previous physical address. As
> the area is in kernel space and usually defined as a global variable this
> is something which is believed not to happen. If this is required by a
> guest, it will have to call the hypercall with the new area (even if it
> is at the same virtual address).
> - the area needs to be mapped during the hypercall. For the same reasons
> as for the previous case, even if the area is registered for a different
> vcpu. It is believed that registering an area using a virtual address
> unmapped is not something done.
Beside me thinking that an in-use and stable ABI can't be changed like
this, no matter what is "believed" kernel code may or may not do, I
also don't think having arch-es diverge in behavior here is a good
idea. Use of commonly available interfaces shouldn't lead to head
aches or surprises when porting code from one arch to another. I'm
pretty sure it was suggested before: Why don't you simply introduce
a physical address based hypercall (and then also on x86 at the same
time, keeping functional parity)? I even seem to recall giving a
suggestion how to fit this into a future "physical addresses only"
model, as long as we can settle on the basic principles of that
conversion path that we want to go sooner or later anyway (as I
understand).

> --- a/xen/arch/x86/domain.c
> +++ b/xen/arch/x86/domain.c
> @@ -1642,6 +1642,30 @@ void paravirt_ctxt_switch_to(struct vcpu *v)
>           wrmsr_tsc_aux(v->arch.msrs->tsc_aux);
>   }
>   
> +int arch_vcpu_setup_runstate(struct vcpu *v,
> +                             struct vcpu_register_runstate_memory_area area)
> +{
> +    struct vcpu_runstate_info runstate;
> +
> +    runstate_guest(v) = area.addr.h;
> +
> +    if ( v == current )
> +    {
> +        __copy_to_guest(runstate_guest(v), &v->runstate, 1);
> +    }
Pointless braces (and I think there are more instances).

> +    else
> +    {
> +        vcpu_runstate_get(v, &runstate);
> +        __copy_to_guest(runstate_guest(v), &runstate, 1);
> +    }
> +    return 0;
Missing blank line before main "return".

Jan