Re: [PATCH -v2] Add MCE support to KVM

From: Anthony Liguori
Date: Tue Apr 21 2009 - 12:12:32 EST


Avi Kivity wrote:
Anthony Liguori wrote:
Huang Ying wrote:
The related MSRs are emulated. MCE capability is exported via
extension KVM_CAP_MCE and ioctl KVM_X86_GET_MCE_CAP_SUPPORTED. A new
vcpu ioctl command KVM_X86_SETUP_MCE is used to setup MCE emulation
such as the mcg_cap. MCE is injected via vcpu ioctl command
KVM_X86_SET_MCE. Extended machine-check state (MCG_EXT_P) and CMCI are
not simulated.

Maybe I'm missing something, but couldn't this be implemented entirely within userspace? There's nothing VT/SVM specific about this. If the issue is setting these MSRs from userspace via KVM_SET_MSRS isn't enough, perhaps we should add userspace MSR handling.


You also need to inject the MCE.

Regardless of the KVM interface for this, to go upstream to QEMU, this needs a TCG implementation which means the logic must be duplicated in userspace. In particular, this is because a user-visible command is being introduced in the monitor.

So Avi, regardless of what interface is chosen for KVM, can you hold off applying these patches until there is a TCG implementation? Otherwise, we'll be playing catchup between kvm-userspace and upstream QEMU forever.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

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