Re: [PATCH 2/7] KVM: SVM: Use host_vmcb_pa for vmload and vmsave

From: Avi Kivity
Date: Thu Jul 14 2011 - 10:01:46 EST


On 07/14/2011 04:52 PM, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> What about an L2 guest executing VMLOAD or VMSAVE which isn't
> intercepted? Don't we have to redirect it's reads and writes to
> host_vmcb?

Yes, that needs to target the host_vmcb then. This is buggy in the
patch-set. Thanks for pointing this out :)

For the low price of an additional test to svm.flat.

>> Hmm, how about naming them l1_vmcb and l2_vmcb? The comment explaining
>> why vmload/vmsave always happens on l1_vmcb is needed anyway then.
>
> In a later patch you introduce n_vmcb. I think it makes sense to name
> that vmcb02?

Just for my understanding, what stands the first '0' for? The '1' and
'2' make sense, but the '0' seems to be redundant?

The first number is the level running in host mode, the second is the level running guest mode.

vmcb01: host running guest
vmcb02: host running nested guest
vmcb12: guest running nested guest (i.e. the virtual vmcb in guest physical address space)

> Even the exising code would be good to document. So when a reader sees
> some bit, they can compare it to the document and see why it's that way.

I tried to put comments into the code to document the most complicated
parts. But there is certainly room for improvement. Overall, I think the
best place is to keep those comments in the code and not open another
document for it.

Those are good for the details, but not so good for the master plan. Like mmu.txt.

>> The long-term plan is certainly to merge code with nested-vmx where
>> possible and move logic into generic KVM code. The first item that comes
>> to mind here is to create a single place where a vmexit is emulated and
>> let all other place which do that today just signal that it is required.
>
> I'm not very concerned about reuse with nvmx except for architectural
> code like interrupts. Of course, if it turns out simple I'm all for it,
> but if it's hard or uglifies the code, let it be.

Yes, the interrupt code is another part that probably can be made
generic.

Yes.

The nested-mmu code is already generic. Nested-VMX should be able to
make use of it with only minor modifications.

Yup, just need support for parsing the EPT PTE format.

--
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function

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