Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v4 0/4] hvm/svm: Enable vm events for SVM

[Razvan Cojocaru <rcojocaru@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/15/2018 02:36 PM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> One thing I note however is that patch 2 and 3 both turn on intercepts
> and have no way of turning them back off.  This appears to be consistent
> with the Intel side of things, but it is suboptimal for the guest when
> an introspection agent detaches.

That's very true (I've also pointed this out to Bitweasil when we've
discussed the CR3 intercept crash after the noflush bit started to get
used).

I've also considered this when I've added the MSR write subscription
code, however it didn't feel safe to just disable those exits when the
introspection agent unplugs.

For one, we'd have to store the previous state somewhere (we might be
interested in a MSR, for example, for which exits were already enabled
before we subscribed to it - we shouldn't disable exits for it then).

And even if we did keep the previous state somewhere (with the assorted
problems - where do we allocate space for it? etc.) - it's theoretically
possible that some other Xen subsystem fiddles with the exits in the
meantime, so the state we remember may not be the current state of
affairs wrt exits.

Am I overthinking this?

> For the CPUID/MSR policy side of things, Jan has talked me in to
> changing how cpuid_policy_updated() works, and implementing it as a
> recalculation of the intercepts on the return-to-guest path.  It occurs
> to me that this usefully extends to changes requested by the
> introspection agent.

Thanks, we'll look that up.


Thanks,
Razvan

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