Re: [PATCH 1/2] xen/*/nospec: Provide common versions of evaluate_nospec/block_speculation

[Julien Grall <julien@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Jan,

On 04/03/2024 16:41, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 04.03.2024 17:31, Julien Grall wrote:
> > On 04/03/2024 16:10, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> > > It is daft to require all architectures to provide empty implementations of
> > > this functionality.
> > Oleksii recenlty sent a similar patch [1]. This was pushed back because
> > from naming, it sounds like the helpers ought to be non-empty on every
> > architecture.
> >
> > It would be best if asm-generic provides a safe version of the helpers.
> > So my preference is to not have this patch. This can of course change if
> > I see an explanation why it is empty on Arm (I believe it should contain
> > csdb) and other arch would want the same.
> Except that there's no new asm-generic/ header here (as opposed to how
> Oleksii had it). Imo avoiding the need for empty stubs is okay this way,
> when introducing an asm-generic/ header would not have been. Of course
> if Arm wants to put something there rather sooner than later, then
> perhaps the functions better wouldn't be removed from there, just to then
> be put back pretty soon.
I am confused. I agree the patch is slightly different, but I thought 
the fundamental problem was the block_speculation() implementation may 
not be safe everywhere. And it was best to let each architecture decide 
how they want to implement (vs Xen decide for us the default).
Reading the original thread, I thought you had agreed with that 
statement. Did I misinterpret?
Cheers,

--
Julien Grall