Re: [PATCH stable] x86/microcode: do not cache microcode if it will not be used

[Paolo Bonzini]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 7:35 PM Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 11:22:02AM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > [ Upstream commit a7939f01672034a58ad3fdbce69bb6c665ce0024 ]
>
> This really isn't this commit id, sorry.

True, that's the point of the mainline kernel where the logic most
closely resembles the patch. stable-kernel-rules.rst does not quite
say what to do in this case.

> > Builtin/initrd microcode will not be used the ucode loader is disabled.
> > But currently, save_microcode_in_initrd is always performed and it
> > accesses MSR_IA32_UCODE_REV even if dis_ucode_ldr is true, and in
> > particular even if X86_FEATURE_HYPERVISOR is set; the TDX module does not
> > implement the MSR and the result is a call trace at boot for TDX guests.
> >
> > Mainline Linux fixed this as part of a more complex rework of microcode
> > caching that went into 6.7 (see in particular commits dd5e3e3ca6,
> > "x86/microcode/intel: Simplify early loading"; and a7939f0167203,
> > "x86/microcode/amd: Cache builtin/initrd microcode early").  Do the bare
> > minimum in stable kernels, setting initrd_gone just like mainline Linux
> > does in mark_initrd_gone().
>
> Why can't we take the changes in 6.7?  Doing a one-off almost always
> causes problems :(

The series is
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20231002115506.217091296@xxxxxxxxxxxxx/

+ fixes at
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20231010150702.495139089@xxxxxxxxxxxxx/T/

for a total of 35 patches and 800 lines changed.

There is no individual patch that fixes the bug, because it wasn't
really intentional in those patches; it just came out naturally as a
consequence of cleaning up unnecessary code. It is fixed as of patch
7, so one possibility would be to apply patches 1-7 in the series
above but, especially for older kernels, that would be way more scary
than this three line patch. It literally says "if microcode won't be
loaded in the processor don't keep it in memory either".

Paolo

> What exact commits are needed?
>
> thanks,
>
> greg
>