[PATCH v2] arm64: KVM: pmu: Reset PMSELR_EL0.SEL to a sane value before entering the guest

Marc Zyngier marc.zyngier at arm.com
Tue Dec 6 09:17:52 PST 2016


On 06/12/16 16:29, Christoffer Dall wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2016 at 02:56:50PM +0000, Marc Zyngier wrote:
>> The ARMv8 architecture allows the cycle counter to be configured
>> by setting PMSELR_EL0.SEL==0x1f and then accessing PMXEVTYPER_EL0,
>> hence accessing PMCCFILTR_EL0. But it disallows the use of
>> PMSELR_EL0.SEL==0x1f to access the cycle counter itself through
>> PMXEVCNTR_EL0.
>>
>> Linux itself doesn't violate this rule, but we may end up with
>> PMSELR_EL0.SEL being set to 0x1f when we enter a guest. If that
>> guest accesses PMXEVCNTR_EL0, the access may UNDEF at EL1,
>> despite the guest not having done anything wrong.
>>
>> In order to avoid this unfortunate course of events (haha!), let's
> 
> I actually did find this funny.
> 
>> sanitize PMSELR_EL0 on guest entry. This ensures that the guest
>> won't explode unexpectedly.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Marc Zyngier <marc.zyngier at arm.com>
>> ---
>> This is another approach to fix this issue, this time nuking PMSELR_EL0
>> on guest entry instead of relying on perf not to clobber the register.
>>
>> Tested on v4.9-rc8 with a Rev A3 X-Gene.
>>
>>  arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c | 8 +++++++-
>>  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c
>> index 83037cd..3b7cfbd 100644
>> --- a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/switch.c
>> @@ -85,7 +85,13 @@ static void __hyp_text __activate_traps(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
>>  	write_sysreg(val, hcr_el2);
>>  	/* Trap on AArch32 cp15 c15 accesses (EL1 or EL0) */
>>  	write_sysreg(1 << 15, hstr_el2);
>> -	/* Make sure we trap PMU access from EL0 to EL2 */
>> +	/*
>> +	 * Make sure we trap PMU access from EL0 to EL2. Also sanitize
>> +	 * PMSELR_EL0 to make sure it never contains the cycle
>> +	 * counter, which could make a PMXEVCNTR_EL0 access UNDEF.
>> +	 */
>> +	if (vcpu->arch.mdcr_el2 & MDCR_EL2_HPMN_MASK)
>> +		write_sysreg(0, pmselr_el0);
> 
> I'm a bit confused about how we use the HPMN field.  This value is
> always set to the full number of counters available on the system and
> never modified by the guest, right?  So this is in essence a check that
> says 'do you have any performance counters, then make sure accesses
> don't undef to el1 instead of trapping to el2', but then my question is,
> why not just set pmselr_el0 to zero unconditionally, because in the case
> where (vcpu->arch.mdcr_el2 & MDCR_EL2_HPMN_MASK) == 0, it means we have
> no counters, which we'll have exposed to the guest anyhow, and we should
> undef at el1 in the guest, or did I get this completely wrong (like
> everything else today)?

Yeah, that's probably the best course of action. If the guest does
something silly, tough. I'll drop the test and repost the thing.

Thanks,

	M.
-- 
Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny...



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