Re: [Xen-devel] VMX Assist and x86 segment registers

[Randy Thelen <rthelen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Khoa Huynh wrote:

> Yes, we are thinking of putting a full instruction emulator into
> qemu-dm and emulating 16-bit stuff in qemu-dm instead of using
> vmxassist (vmxassist will go away).  Leendert van Doorn and I are
> working on this.  Thanks.
The problem, as I see it, is the hand-off of the "hidden" or  
"invisible" segmentation register information during the transition  
from emulator to the real hardware and vice-versa.  So, regardless of  
whether qemu-dm is emulating the 16 bit code or vmxassist, the  
correct segment information has to be conveyed for correct execution.
The example of big real mode that I included in my mail was simply to  
note the fact that segment data is persistent across mode changes and  
vmxassist does not carry that information forward to protected mode  
or backward to real mode.
The example code snippet which is relevant here is:

---------bits: 16---------filename: btx.o---------origin:  
00009010---------
00009010 (01) fa                       CLI
00009011 (02) 31c0                     XOR AX, AX
00009013 (02) 8ed0                     MOV SS, AX
00009015 (03) bc 0018                  MOV SP, 0x1800
00009018 (02) 8ec0                     MOV ES, AX
0000901a (02) 8ed8                     MOV DS, AX

At this point DS is zero'd.

00009070 (03) 0f20c0                   MOV EAX, CR0
00009073 (04) 66 83c8 01               OR EAX, 0x1
00009077 (03) 0f22c0                   MOV CR0, EAX
0000907a (05) ea 7f00 0800             JMP FAR 0x8:0x7f

The far jump gets us to 32 bit mode:

---------bits: 32---------filename: btx.o---------origin:  
0000907f---------
0000907f (02) 31c9                     XOR ECX, ECX
00009081 (02) b1 10                    MOV CL, 0x10
00009083 (02) 8ed1                     MOV SS, CX
00009085 (02) b1 38                    MOV CL, 0x38
00009087 (03) 0f00d9                   LTR CX
...
000090ac (06) ff35 0c000000            PUSH DWORD [0xc]

At the point of 90ac, the DS segment is 0.  vmxassist was setting the  
'hidden' fields of the segment register such that ds was being  
interpreted as a null segment.  But it's not null, it's valid.  Qemu- 
dm will need to address this code snippet, too.
-- Randy

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