[PATCH v3 17/62] KVM: SVM: Add enable_ipiv param, never set IsRunning if disabled

Sean Christopherson seanjc at google.com
Fri Jun 20 07:39:16 PDT 2025


On Thu, Jun 19, 2025, Naveen N Rao wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 03:45:20PM -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > From: Maxim Levitsky <mlevitsk at redhat.com>
> > 
> > Let userspace "disable" IPI virtualization for AVIC via the enable_ipiv
> > module param, by never setting IsRunning.  SVM doesn't provide a way to
> > disable IPI virtualization in hardware, but by ensuring CPUs never see
> > IsRunning=1, every IPI in the guest (except for self-IPIs) will generate a
> > VM-Exit.
> 
> I think this is good to have regardless of the erratum. Not sure about VMX,
> but does it make sense to intercept writes to the self-ipi MSR as well?

That doesn't work for AVIC, i.e. if the guest is MMIO to access the virtual APIC.

Regardless, I don't see any reason to manually intercept self-IPIs when IPI
virtualization is disabled.  AFAIK, there's no need to do so for correctness,
and Intel's self-IPI virtualization isn't tied to IPI virtualization either.
Self-IPI virtualization is enabled by virtual interrupt delivery, which in turn
is enabled by KVM when enable_apicv is true:

  Self-IPI virtualization occurs only if the “virtual-interrupt delivery”
  VM-execution control is 1.



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