Re: KVM_SET_CPUID doesn't check supported bits (was Re: [PATCH 0/6] KVM: x86: KVM_SET_SREGS.CR4 bug fixes and cleanup)

[Jim Mattson]

On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 3:47 AM stsp <stsp2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> 07.12.2020 14:29, Paolo Bonzini пишет:
> > On 07/12/20 12:24, stsp wrote:
> >> It tries to enable VME among other things.
> >> qemu appears to disable VME by default,
> >> unless you do "-cpu host". So we have a situation where
> >> the host (which is qemu) doesn't have VME,
> >> and guest (dosemu) is trying to enable it.
> >> Now obviously KVM_SET_CPUID doesn't check anyting
> >> at all and returns success. That later turns
> >> into an invalid guest state.
> >>
> >>
> >> Question: should KVM_SET_CPUID check for
> >> supported bits, end return error if not everything
> >> is supported?
> >
> > No, it is intentional.  Most bits of CPUID are not ever checked by
> > KVM, so userspace is supposed to set values that makes sense
> By "that makes sense" you probably
> meant to say "bits_that_makes_sense masked
> with the ones returned by KVM_GET_SUPPORTED_CPUID"?
>
> So am I right that KVM_SET_CPUID only "lowers"
> the supported bits? In which case I don't need to
> call it at all, but instead just call KVM_GET_SUPPORTED_CPUID
> and see if the needed bits are supported, and
> exit otherwise, right?

"Lowers" is a tricky concept for CPUID information. Some feature bits
report 0 for "present" and 1 for "not-present." Some multi-bit fields
are interpreted as numbers, which may be signed or unsigned. Some
multi-bit fields are strings. Some fields have dependencies on other
fields. Etc.