[PATCH] x86: don't rely on VMWare emulating PAT MSR correctly

From: Juergen Gross
Date: Tue Dec 16 2014 - 04:58:50 EST


VMWare seems not to emulate the PAT MSR correctly: reaeding
MSR_IA32_CR_PAT returns 0 even after writing another value to it.

Detect this bug and don't use the read value if it is 0.

Commit bd809af16e3ab1f8d55b3e2928c47c67e2a865d2 ("x86: Enable PAT to
use cache mode translation tables") triggers this VMWare bug when the
kernel is booted as a VMWare guest.

Reported-by: Jongman Heo <jongman.heo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Jongman Heo <jongman.heo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/mm/pat.c | 7 ++++++-
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/pat.c b/arch/x86/mm/pat.c
index edf299c..7ac6869 100644
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pat.c
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pat.c
@@ -234,8 +234,13 @@ void pat_init(void)
PAT(4, WB) | PAT(5, WC) | PAT(6, UC_MINUS) | PAT(7, UC);

/* Boot CPU check */
- if (!boot_pat_state)
+ if (!boot_pat_state) {
rdmsrl(MSR_IA32_CR_PAT, boot_pat_state);
+ if (!boot_pat_state) {
+ pat_disable("PAT read returns always zero, disabled.");
+ return;
+ }
+ }

wrmsrl(MSR_IA32_CR_PAT, pat);

--
2.1.2

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