Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2 01/20] x86: make hvm_{get/set}_param accessible

[Tamas K Lengyel <tamas.k.lengyel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 10:47 AM Andrew Cooper
<andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 20/12/2019 17:36, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 10:32 AM Andrew Cooper
> > <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> On 20/12/2019 17:27, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
> >>> On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 9:47 AM Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> On 18.12.2019 20:40, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
> >>>>> Currently the hvm parameters are only accessible via the HVMOP 
> >>>>> hypercalls. By
> >>>>> exposing hvm_{get/set}_param it will be possible for VM forking to copy 
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> parameters directly into the clone domain.
> >>>> Having peeked ahead at patch 17, where this gets used, I wonder why
> >>>> you want a pair of one-by-one functions, rather than a copy-all one.
> >>>> This then wouldn't require exposure of the functions you touch here.
> >>> Well, provided there is no such function in existence today it was
> >>> just easier to use what's already available. I still wouldn't want to
> >>> implement a one-shot function like that because this same code-path is
> >>> shared by the save-restore operations on the toolstack side, so at
> >>> least I have a reasonable assumption that it won't break on me in the
> >>> future.
> >> In particular, a number of the set operations are distinctly
> >> non-trivial.  (OTOH, those are not long for this world, and should be
> >> creation X86_EMU_* constants instead).
> >>
> > I actually wanted to ask about that. In
> > https://xenbits.xen.org/gitweb/?p=xen.git;a=blob;f=tools/libxc/xc_sr_save_x86_hvm.c;h=97a8c49807f192c47209525f51e4d79a50c66cec;hb=HEAD#l61
> > the toolstack only selects certain HVM params to be saved (and
> > restored later). I originally followed the same logic in the fork
> > code-path but after a lot of experiments it looks like it's actually
> > OK to grab all params but only call set_param on the ones that have a
> > non-zero value. So setting some params with a zero value has certainly
> > lead to crashes, but otherwise it seems to "just work" to copy all the
> > rest.
>
> I think you're trying to ascribe any form of design/plan to a system
> which had none. :)
>
> The code you quote was like that because that is how legacy migration
> worked.  That said, eliding empty records was an effort-saving exercise
> (avoid redundant hypercalls on destination side), not because there was
> any suggestion that attempting to explicitly set 0 would crash.
>
> Do you have any idea which param was causing problems?

Yes, HVM_PARAM_IDENT_PT was one sure. There may have been others (I
don't recall now) but simply checking for non-zero value before
calling set_param resolved everything.

Tamas

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