Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] KVM: SVM: Modify AVIC GATag to support max number of 512 vCPUs

From: Sean Christopherson
Date: Tue Feb 07 2023 - 11:38:22 EST


On Tue, Feb 07, 2023, Joao Martins wrote:
> On 07/02/2023 08:33, Igor Mammedov wrote:
> > On Tue, 7 Feb 2023 00:21:55 +0000
> > Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Suravee Suthikulpanit <suravee.suthikulpanit@xxxxxxx>
> >>
> >> Define AVIC_VCPU_ID_MASK based on AVIC_PHYSICAL_MAX_INDEX, i.e. the mask
> >> that effectively controls the largest guest physical APIC ID supported by
> >> x2AVIC, instead of hardcoding the number of bits to 8 (and the number of
> >> VM bits to 24).
> >
> > Is there any particular reason not to tie it to max supported by KVM
> > KVM_MAX_VCPU_IDS?
> >
> > Another question:
> > will guest fail to start when configured with more than 512 vCPUs
> > or it will start broken?
> >
>
> I think the problem is not so much the GATag (which can really be anything at
> the resolution you want). It's more of an SVM limit AIUI. Provided you can't
> have GATAgs if you don't have guest-mode/AVIC active, then makes sense have the
> same limit on both.

Yep. The physical ID table, which is needed to achieve full AVIC benefits for a
vCPU, is a single 4KiB page that holds 512 64-bit entries. AIUI, the GATag is
used if and only if the interrupt target is in the physical ID table, so using
more GATag bits for vCPU ID is pointless.

> SVM seems to be limited to 256 vcpus in xAPIC mode or 512 vcpus in x2APIC
> mode[0]. IIUC You actually won't be able to create guests with more than
> 512vcpus as KVM bound checks those max limits very early in the vCPU init (see
> avic_init_vcpu()). I guess the alternative would an AVIC inhibit if vCPU count
> goes beyond those limits -- probably a must have once avic flips to 1 by default
> like Intel.

I don't _think_ KVM would have to explicitly inhibit AVIC. I believe the fallout
would be that vCPUs >= 512 would simply not be eligible for virtual interrupt
delivery, e.g. KVM would get a "Invalid Target in IPI" exit. I haven't dug into
the IOMMU side of things though, so it's possible something in that world would
necessitate disabling (x2)AVIC.

> [0] in APM Volume 2 15.29.4.3 Physical Address Pointer Restrictions,
>
> * All the addresses point to 4-Kbyte aligned data structures. Bits 11:0 are
> reserved (except for offset 0F8h) and should be set to zero. The lower 8 bits of
> offset 0F8h are used for the field AVIC_PHYSICAL_MAX_INDEX. VMRUN fails with
> #VMEXIT(VMEXIT_INVALID) if AVIC_PHYSICAL_MAX_INDEX is greater than 255 in xAVIC
> mode or greater than 511 in x2AVIC mode.