Re: [PATCH 23/35] x86/fpu: Add helpers for modifying supervisor xstate

From: Edgecombe, Rick P
Date: Fri Feb 11 2022 - 21:31:28 EST


On Fri, 2022-02-11 at 16:27 -0800, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 1/30/22 13:18, Rick Edgecombe wrote:
> > Add helpers that can be used to modify supervisor xstate safely for
> > the
> > current task.
>
> This should be at the end of the changelog.

Hmm, ok.

>
> > State for supervisors xstate based features can be live and
> > accesses via MSR's, or saved in memory in an xsave buffer. When the
> > kernel needs to modify this state it needs to be sure to operate on
> > it
> > in the right place, so the modifications don't get clobbered.
>
> We tend to call these "supervisor xfeatures". The "state is in the
> registers" we call "active". Maybe:
>
> Just like user xfeatures, supervisor xfeatures can be either
> active in the registers or inactive and present in the task FPU
> buffer. If the registers are active, the registers can be
> modified directly. If the registers are not active, the
> modification must be performed on the task FPU buffer.

Ok, thanks.

>
>
> > In the past supervisor xstate features have used get_xsave_addr()
> > directly, and performed open coded logic handle operating on the
> > saved
> > state correctly. This has posed two problems:
> > 1. It has logic that has been gotten wrong more than once.
> > 2. To reduce code, less common path's are not optimized.
> > Determination
>
> "paths" ^
>

Arg, thanks.

>
> > xstate = start_update_xsave_msrs(XFEATURE_FOO);
> > r = xsave_rdmsrl(state, MSR_IA32_FOO_1, &val)
> > if (r)
> > xsave_wrmsrl(state, MSR_IA32_FOO_2, FOO_ENABLE);
> > end_update_xsave_msrs();
>
> This looks OK. I'm not thrilled about it. The
> start_update_xsave_msrs() can probably drop the "_msrs". Maybe:
>
> start_xfeature_update(...);

Hmm, this whole thing pretends to be updating MSRs, which is often not
true. Maybe the xsave_rdmsrl/xsave_wrmsrl should be renamed too.
xsave_readl()/xsave_writel() or something.

>
> Also, if you have to do the address lookup in xsave_rdmsrl() anyway,
> I
> wonder if the 'xstate' should just be a full fledged 'struct
> xregs_state'.
>
> The other option would be to make a little on-stack structure like:
>
> struct xsave_update {
> int feature;
> struct xregs_state *xregs;
> };
>
> Then you do:
>
> struct xsave_update xsu;
> ...
> start_update_xsave_msrs(&xsu, XFEATURE_FOO);
>
> and then pass it along to each of the other operations:
>
> r = xsave_rdmsrl(xsu, MSR_IA32_FOO_1, &val)
>
> It's slightly less likely to get type confused as a 'void *';

The 'void *' is actually a pointer to the specific xfeature in the
buffer. So the read/writes don't have to re-compute the offset every
time. It's not too much work though. I'm really surprised by the desire
to obfuscate the pointer, but I guess if we really want to, I'd rather
do that and keep the regular read/write operations.

If we don't care about the extra lookups this can totally drop the
caller side state. The feature nr can be looked up from the MSR along
with the struct offset. Then it doesn't expose the pointer to the
buffer, since it's all recomputed every operation.

So like:
start_xfeature_update();
r = xsave_readl(MSR_IA32_FOO_1, &val)
if (r)
xsave_writel(MSR_IA32_FOO_2, FOO_ENABLE);
end_xfeature_update();

The WARNs then happen in the read/writes. An early iteration looked
like that. I liked this version with caller side state, but thought it
might be worth revisiting if there really is a strong desire to hide
the pointer.

>
> > +static u64 *__get_xsave_member(void *xstate, u32 msr)
> > +{
> > + switch (msr) {
> > + /* Currently there are no MSR's supported */
> > + default:
> > + WARN_ONCE(1, "x86/fpu: unsupported xstate msr (%u)\n",
> > msr);
> > + return NULL;
> > + }
> > +}
>
> Just to get an idea what this is doing, it's OK to include the shadow
> stack MSRs in here.

Ok.

>
> Are you sure this should return a u64*? We have lots of <=64-bit
> XSAVE
> fields.

I thought it should only be used with 64 bit msrs. Maybe it needs a
better name?

>
> > +/*
> > + * Return a pointer to the xstate for the feature if it should be
> > used, or NULL
> > + * if the MSRs should be written to directly. To do this safely,
> > using the
> > + * associated read/write helpers is required.
> > + */
> > +void *start_update_xsave_msrs(int xfeature_nr)
> > +{
> > + void *xstate;
> > +
> > + /*
> > + * fpregs_lock() only disables preemption (mostly). So modifing
> > state
>
> modifying ^
>
> > + * in an interrupt could screw up some in progress fpregs
> > operation,
>
> ^ in-progress

I swear I ran checkpatch...

>
> > + * but appear to work. Warn about it.
> > + */
> > + WARN_ON_ONCE(!in_task());
> > + WARN_ON_ONCE(current->flags & PF_KTHREAD);
>
> This might also be a good spot to check that xfeature_nr is in
> fpstate.xfeatures.

Hmm, good idea.

>
> > + fpregs_lock();
> > +
> > + fpregs_assert_state_consistent();
> > +
> > + /*
> > + * If the registers don't need to be reloaded. Go ahead and
> > operate on the
> > + * registers.
> > + */
> > + if (!test_thread_flag(TIF_NEED_FPU_LOAD))
> > + return NULL;
> > +
> > + xstate = get_xsave_addr(&current->thread.fpu.fpstate-
> > >regs.xsave, xfeature_nr);
> > +
> > + /*
> > + * If regs are in the init state, they can't be retrieved from
> > + * init_fpstate due to the init optimization, but are not
> > nessarily
>
> necessarily ^

Oof, thanks.

>
> Spell checker time. ":set spell" in vim works for me nicely.
>
> > + * zero. The only option is to restore to make everything live
> > and
> > + * operate on registers. This will clear TIF_NEED_FPU_LOAD.
> > + *
> > + * Otherwise, if not in the init state but TIF_NEED_FPU_LOAD is
> > set,
> > + * operate on the buffer. The registers will be restored before
> > going
> > + * to userspace in any case, but the task might get preempted
> > before
> > + * then, so this possibly saves an xsave.
> > + */
> > + if (!xstate)
> > + fpregs_restore_userregs();
>
> Won't fpregs_restore_userregs() end up setting TIF_NEED_FPU_LOAD=0?
> Isn't that a case where a "return NULL" is needed?

This is for the case when the feature is in the init state. For CET's
case this could just zero the buffer and return the pointer to it, but
for other features the init state wasn't always zero. So this just
makes all the features "active" and TIF_NEED_FPU_LOAD is cleared. It
then returns NULL and the read/writes go to the MSRs. It still looks
correct to me, am I missing something?

>
> In any case, this makes me think this code should start out stupid
> and
> slow. Keep the API as-is, but make the first patch unconditionally
> do
> the WRMSR. Leave the "fast" buffer modifications for a follow-on
> patch.

Ok. Should I drop the optimized versions from the series or just split
them out? The optimizations were trying to address Boris' comments:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/YS95VzrNhDhFpsop@xxxxxxx/