Re: [PATCH] KVM: VMX: remove LFENCE in vmx_spec_ctrl_restore_host()

From: Pawan Gupta
Date: Wed May 31 2023 - 21:24:56 EST


On Thu, Jun 01, 2023 at 01:50:48AM +0100, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 01/06/2023 1:42 am, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > So each LFENCE has a distinct purpose. That said, there are no indirect
> > branches or unbalanced RETs between them.
>
> How lucky are you feeling?
>
> You're in C at this point, which means the compiler could have emitted a
> call to mem{cpy,cmp}() in place of a simple assignment/comparison.

Moving the second LFENCE to the else part of WRMSR should be possible?
So that the serialization can be achived either by WRMSR or LFENCE. This
saves an LFENCE when host and guest value of MSR_SPEC_CTRL differ.

---
diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c b/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
index d2d6e1b6c788..d32e6d172dd6 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
@@ -7157,8 +7157,8 @@ void noinstr vmx_spec_ctrl_restore_host(struct vcpu_vmx *vmx,
if (cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_KERNEL_IBRS) ||
vmx->spec_ctrl != hostval)
native_wrmsrl(MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL, hostval);
-
- barrier_nospec();
+ else
+ barrier_nospec();
}

static fastpath_t vmx_exit_handlers_fastpath(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)