[Xen-devel] [PATCH v3 0/4] x86: accommodate 32-bit PV guests with SMEP/SMAP handling

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

As has been explained previously[1], SMAP (and with less relevance
also SMEP) is not compatible with 32-bit PV guests which aren't
aware/prepared to be run with that feature enabled. Andrew's
original approach either sacrificed architectural correctness for
making 32-bit guests work again, or disabled SMAP also for not
insignificant portions of hypervisor code, both by allowing to control
the workaround mode via command line option.

This alternative approach disables SMEP and SMAP only while
running 32-bit PV guest code plus a few hypervisor instructions
early after entering hypervisor context from or late before exiting
to such guests. Those few instructions (in assembly source) are of
course much easier to prove not to perform undue memory
accesses than code paths reaching deep into C sources.

The 4th patch really is unrelated except for not applying cleanly
without the earlier ones, and the potential having been noticed
while putting together the 2nd one.

1: move cached CR4 value to struct cpu_info
2: suppress SMEP and SMAP while running 32-bit PV guest code
3: use optimal NOPs to fill the SMEP/SMAP placeholders
4: use 32-bit loads for 32-bit PV guest state reload

Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>
---
v3: New patch 1, as a prereq to changes in patch 2 (previously
     1). The primary reason for this are performance issues that
     have been found by Andrew with the previous version.
v2: Various changes to patches 1 and 2 - see there.

[1] http://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2015-06/msg03888.html


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