Re: [RFC 11/19] KVM: x86/mmu: Factor shadow_zero_check out of make_spte

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Wed Nov 10 2021 - 17:45:04 EST


On 11/10/21 23:30, Ben Gardon wrote:
- WARN_ONCE(is_rsvd_spte(&vcpu->arch.mmu->shadow_zero_check, spte, level),
+ WARN_ONCE(is_rsvd_spte(shadow_zero_check, spte, level),
"spte = 0x%llx, level = %d, rsvd bits = 0x%llx", spte, level,
- get_rsvd_bits(&vcpu->arch.mmu->shadow_zero_check, spte, level));
+ get_rsvd_bits(shadow_zero_check, spte, level));

Hmm, there is a deeper issue here, in that when using EPT/NPT (on either the legacy aka shadow or the TDP MMU) large parts of vcpu->arch.mmu are really the same for all vCPUs. The only thing that varies is those parts that actually depend on the guest's paging mode---the extended role, the reserved bits, etc. Those are needed by the emulator, but don't really belong in vcpu->arch.mmu when EPT/NPT is in use.

I wonder if there's room for splitting kvm_mmu in two parts, such as kvm_mmu and kvm_guest_paging_context, and possibly change the walk_mmu pointer into a pointer to kvm_guest_paging_context. This way the EPT/NPT MMU (again either shadow or TDP) can be moved to kvm->arch. It should simplify this series and also David's work on eager page splitting.

I'm not asking you to do this, of course, but perhaps I can trigger Sean's itch to refactor stuff. :)

Paolo