[Xen-devel] [PATCH v9 00/15] improve late microcode loading

[Chao Gao <chao.gao@xxxxxxxxx>]

Changes in version 9:
 - add Jan's Reviewed-by
 - rendevzous threads in NMI handler to disable NMI. Note that NMI can
 be served as usual on threads that are chosen to initiate ucode loading
 on each core.
 - avoid unnecessary memory allocation or copy when creating a microcode
 patch (patch 12)
 - rework patch 1 to avoid microcode_update_match() being used to
 compare two arbitrary updates.
 - call .end_update in early loading path.

Sergey, could you help to test this series on an AMD machine?
Regarding changes to AMD side, I didn't do any test for them due to
lack of hardware. At least, two basic tests are needed:
* do a microcode update after system bootup
* don't bring all pCPUs up at bootup by specifying maxcpus option in xen
  command line and then do a microcode update and online all offlined
  CPUs via 'xen-hptool'.

The intention of this series is to make the late microcode loading
more reliable by rendezvousing all cpus in stop_machine context.
This idea comes from Ashok. I am porting his linux patch to Xen
(see patch 13 more details).

This series includes below changes:
 1. Patch 1-12: introduce a global microcode cache and some cleanup
 2. Patch 13: synchronize late microcode loading
 3. Patch 14: support parallel microcodes update on different cores
 4. Patch 15: block #NMI handling during microcode loading

Currently, late microcode loading does a lot of things including
parsing microcode blob, checking the signature/revision and performing
update. Putting all of them into stop_machine context is a bad idea
because of complexity (one issue I observed is memory allocation
triggered one assertion in stop_machine context). To simplify the
load process, parsing microcode is moved out of the load process.
Remaining parts of load process is put to stop_machine context.

Previous change log:
Changes in version 8:
 - block #NMI handling during microcode loading (Patch 16)
 - Don't assume that all CPUs in the system have loaded a same ucode.
 So when parsing a blob, we attempt to save a patch as long as it matches
 with current cpu signature regardless of the revision of the patch.
 And also for loading, we only require the patch to be loaded isn't old
 than the cached one.
 - store an update after the first successful loading on a CPU
 - remove the patch that calls wbinvd() unconditionally before microcode
 loading. It is under internal discussion.
 - divide two big patches into several patches to improve readability.

Changes in version 7:
 - cache one microcode update rather than a list of it. Assuming that all CPUs
 (including those will be plugged in later) in the system have the same
 signature, one update matches with one CPU should match with others. Thus, one
 update is enough for microcode updating during CPU hot-plug and resuming.
 - To handle load failure, microcode update is cached after it is applied to
 avoid a broken update overriding a validated one. Unvalidated microcode updates
 are passed by arguments rather than another global variable, where this series
 slightly differs from Roger's suggestion in:
 https://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2019-03/msg00776.html
 - incorporate Sergey's patch (patch 10) to fix a bug: we maintain a variable
 to reflect current microcode revision. But in some cases, this variable isn't
 initialized during system boot time, which results in falsely reporting that
 processor is susceptible to some known vulnerabilities.
 - fix issues reported by Sergey:
 https://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2019-03/msg00901.html
 - Responses to Sergey/Roger/Wei/Ashok's other comments.

Major changes in version 6:
 - run wbinvd before updating microcode (patch 10)
 - add an userspace tool for late microcode update (patch 1)
 - scale time to wait by the number of remaining CPUs to respond 
 - remove 'cpu' parameters from some related callbacks and functins
 - save an ucode patch only if its supported CPU is allowed to mix with
   current cpu.

Changes in version 5:
 - support parallel microcode updates for all cores (see patch 8)
 - Address Roger's comments on the last version.


Chao Gao (15):
  microcode/intel: extend microcode_update_match()
  microcode/amd: fix memory leak
  microcode/amd: distinguish old and mismatched ucode in
    microcode_fits()
  microcode: introduce a global cache of ucode patch
  microcode: clean up microcode_resume_cpu
  microcode: remove struct ucode_cpu_info
  microcode: remove pointless 'cpu' parameter
  microcode/amd: call svm_host_osvw_init() in common code
  microcode: pass a patch pointer to apply_microcode()
  microcode: split out apply_microcode() from cpu_request_microcode()
  microcode: unify loading update during CPU resuming and AP wakeup
  microcode: reduce memory allocation and copy when creating a patch
  x86/microcode: Synchronize late microcode loading
  microcode: remove microcode_update_lock
  microcode: block #NMI handling when loading an ucode

 xen/arch/x86/acpi/power.c       |   2 +-
 xen/arch/x86/apic.c             |   2 +-
 xen/arch/x86/microcode.c        | 518 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 xen/arch/x86/microcode_amd.c    | 267 +++++++++------------
 xen/arch/x86/microcode_intel.c  | 202 ++++++++--------
 xen/arch/x86/smpboot.c          |   5 +-
 xen/arch/x86/spec_ctrl.c        |   2 +-
 xen/include/asm-x86/microcode.h |  43 ++--
 xen/include/asm-x86/processor.h |   4 +-
 9 files changed, 642 insertions(+), 403 deletions(-)

-- 
1.8.3.1


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