Re: [PATCH v2] KVM: x86: do not read FS/GS base MSRs when saving them

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Wed Jan 03 2018 - 18:42:39 EST


On 03/01/2018 23:20, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> On Jan 2, 2018, at 5:59 AM, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> The FS and userspace GS bases are available in current->thread, while the
>> kernel GS base is a percpu variable. Skip the expensive rdmsr and just
>> get the values from memory.
>
> That fsbase change is wrong: thread->fsbase is not guaranteed to be
> correct for current.

Note that the value I'm storing in HOST_FS_BASE and HOST_GS_BASE is only
used if FS/GS selector is zero. If FS/GS selector is not zero, it is
not used. Does that avoid this issue?

Certainly worth a comment or clearer code though.

>> +#ifdef CONFIG_X86_64
>> +/* Provide the current kernel GS base. */
>> +static inline void *get_current_kernel_gs_base(void)
>> +{
>> + return this_cpu_ptr(irq_stack_union.gs_base);
>> +}
>> +#endif
>
> This is an awful name because MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE means the user gs
> base. How about calling it something like
> get_this_cpu_kernelmode_gs_base() or similar?

True, I'll adopt your name.

Paolo

>> #ifdef CONFIG_X86_64
>> - vmcs_writel(HOST_FS_BASE, read_msr(MSR_FS_BASE));
>> - vmcs_writel(HOST_GS_BASE, read_msr(MSR_GS_BASE));
>> + vmcs_writel(HOST_FS_BASE, current->thread.fsbase);
>
> That's wrong. thread->fsbase isn't kept up to date while the thread
> is running. You could potentially try to expose an interface to get
> save_base_legacy() called to update it.
>