Re: [PATCH] x86/PAT: have pat_enabled() properly reflect state when running on e.g. Xen

From: Borislav Petkov
Date: Mon Jul 11 2022 - 07:18:36 EST


On Thu, Jul 07, 2022 at 08:38:44AM +0200, Jan Beulich wrote:
> Well, right now the pvops hook for Xen swallows #GP anyway (wrongly
> so imo, but any of my earlier pointing out of that has been left
> unheard, despite even the code comments there saying "It may be worth
> changing that").

Oh great. ;-\

> The point is therefore that after writing PAT, it would need reading
> back. In which case it feels (slightly) more clean to me to avoid the
> write attempt in the first place, when we know it's not going to work.

X86_FEATURE_XENPV check then.

> If I may ask - doesn't this mean this patch, in its current shape, is
> already a (small) step in that direction? In any event what you say
> doesn't sound to me like a viable (backportable) route to addressing
> the regression at hand.

Backportable to where? To whatever tree has

bdd8b6c98239 ("drm/i915: replace X86_FEATURE_PAT with pat_enabled()")

? If it is that, then 5.17 and newer.

Anyway, I don't mind it as long as you put the proper splitting out
ontop and it all goes as a single patchset, with the minimal fix
CC:stable and queued first.

Thx.

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

https://people.kernel.org/tglx/notes-about-netiquette