Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] KVM: x86/mmu: Fully re-evaluate MMIO caching when SPTE masks change

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 8/19/22 18:21, David Matlack wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2022 at 3:50 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Fully re-evaluate whether or not MMIO caching can be enabled when SPTE
> > masks change; simply clearing enable_mmio_caching when a configuration
> > isn't compatible with caching fails to handle the scenario where the
> > masks are updated, e.g. by VMX for EPT or by SVM to account for the C-bit
> > location, and toggle compatibility from false=>true.
> >
> > Snapshot the original module param so that re-evaluating MMIO caching
> > preserves userspace's desire to allow caching.  Use a snapshot approach
> > so that enable_mmio_caching still reflects KVM's actual behavior.
>
> Is updating module parameters to reflect the actual behavior (vs.
> userspace desire) something we should do for all module parameters?
>
> I am doing an unrelated refactor to the tdp_mmu module parameter and
> noticed it is not updated e.g. if userspace loads kvm_intel with
> ept=N.

If it is cheap/easy then yeah, updating the parameters is the right 
thing to do.  Generally, however, this is only done for 
kvm_intel/kvm_amd modules that depend on hardware features, because they 
are more important for debugging user issues.  (Or at least they were 
until vmx features were added to /proc/cpuinfo).

Paolo