Re: [RFC] /dev/ioasid uAPI proposal

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Tue Jun 08 2021 - 09:44:36 EST


On 08/06/21 15:15, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
On Tue, Jun 08, 2021 at 09:56:09AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:

Alternatively you can add a KVM_DEV_IOASID_{ADD,DEL} pair of ioctls. But it
seems useless complication compared to just using what we have now, at least
while VMs only use IOASIDs via VFIO.

The simplest is KVM_ENABLE_WBINVD(<fd security proof>) and be done
with it.

The simplest one is KVM_DEV_VFIO_GROUP_ADD/DEL, that already exists and also
covers hot-unplug. The second simplest one is KVM_DEV_IOASID_ADD/DEL.

This isn't the same thing, this is back to trying to have the kernel
set policy for userspace.

If you want a userspace policy then there would be three states:

* WBINVD enabled because a WBINVD-enabled VFIO device is attached.

* WBINVD potentially enabled but no WBINVD-enabled VFIO device attached

* WBINVD forcefully disabled

KVM_DEV_VFIO_GROUP_ADD/DEL can still be used to distinguish the first two. Due to backwards compatibility, those two describe the default behavior; disabling wbinvd can be done easily with a new sub-ioctl of KVM_ENABLE_CAP and doesn't require any security proof.

The meaning of WBINVD-enabled is "won't return -ENXIO for the wbinvd ioctl", nothing more nothing less. If all VFIO devices are going to be WBINVD-enabled, then that will reflect on KVM as well, and I won't have anything to object if there's consensus on the device assignment side of things that the wbinvd ioctl won't ever fail.

Paolo