Re: [PATCH v4 2/6] x86/sev-es: Disable IRQs while GHCB is active

From: Borislav Petkov
Date: Fri Jun 11 2021 - 10:05:27 EST


On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 11:11:37AM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> From: Joerg Roedel <jroedel@xxxxxxx>
>
> The #VC handler only cares about IRQs being disabled while the GHCB is
> active, as it must not be interrupted by something which could cause
> another #VC while it holds the GHCB (NMI is the exception for which the
> backup GHCB is there).
>
> Make sure nothing interrupts the code path while the GHCB is active by
> disabling IRQs in sev_es_get_ghcb() and restoring the previous irq state
> in sev_es_put_ghcb().

Why this unnecessarily complicated passing of flags back and forth?

Why not simply "sandwich" them:

local_irq_save()
sev_es_get_ghcb()

...blablabla

sev_es_put_ghcb()
local_irq_restore();

in every call site?

What's the difference in passing *flags in and have the
get_ghcb/put_ghcb save/restore flags instead of the callers?

> -static __always_inline struct ghcb *sev_es_get_ghcb(struct ghcb_state *state)
> +static __always_inline struct ghcb *sev_es_get_ghcb(struct ghcb_state *state,
> + unsigned long *flags)
> {
> struct sev_es_runtime_data *data;
> struct ghcb *ghcb;
>
> + /*
> + * Nothing shall interrupt this code path while holding the per-cpu
> + * GHCB. The backup GHCB is only for NMIs interrupting this path.

Hmm, so why aren't you accessing/setting data->ghcb_active and
data->backup_ghcb_active safely using cmpxchg() if this path can be
interrupted by an NMI?

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

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