Re: [Xen-devel] [for-4.7] x86/emulate: synchronize LOCKed instruction emulation

[Razvan Cojocaru <rcojocaru@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/14/16 09:09, Juergen Gross wrote:
> On 14/04/16 07:56, Razvan Cojocaru wrote:
>> This indeed doesn't guard against LOCKed instructions being run in
>> parallel with and without emulation, however that is a case that should
>> almost never occur - at least not with introspection, where currently
>> all emulation happens as a result of EPT faults - so either all
>> instructions hitting a restricted page are emulated, or all ar run
>> directly. As long as all emulation can safely run in parallel and all
>> parallel non-emulation is also safe, it should be alright. But, yes,
>> this patch doesn't cover the case you're mentioning.
> 
> What about grant pages? There could be parallel accesses from different
> domains, one being introspected, the other not.

I'm not familiar with the code there, but the main issue is, I think,
LOCKed instructions that access (read / write) the same memory area - as
long as that doesn't happen, it should be fine, which may be the reason
why it hasn't caused problems so far.

While not perfect, I believe that the added safety is worth the small
performance impact for writes. I feel that going from unsafe parallel
emulation to safe parallel emulation is a good step to take, at least
until the problem can be fixed completely by more complex measures.


Thanks,
Razvan

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