[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 1/2] arm: smccc: handle SMCs/HVCs according to SMCCC



(+ Edgar, Mark, Dave)

Hi,

On 14/06/17 15:10, Volodymyr Babchuk wrote:
SMCCC (SMC Call Convention) describes how to handle both HVCs and SMCs.
SMCCC states that both HVC and SMC are valid conduits to call to a different
firmware functions. Thus, for example PSCI calls can be made both by
SMC or HVC. Also SMCCC defines function number coding for such calls.
Besides functional calls there are query calls, which allows underling
OS determine version, UID and number of functions provided by service
provider.

This patch adds new file `smccc.c`, which handles both generic SMCs
and HVC according to SMC. At this moment it implements only one
service: Standard Hypervisor Service.

Standard Hypervisor Service only supports query calls, so caller can
ask about hypervisor UID and determine that it is XEN running.

This change allows more generic handling for SMCs and HVCs and it can
be easily extended to support new services and functions.

I have already reviewed the code and one thing I missed is how a domain will know that Xen supports SMCCC.

Currently, Xen will:
        - inject an undefined instruction for any SMC issued by a guest
        - crash the guest (quite bad) for any unknown HCV #0

So a guest needs to be aware whether Xen supports SMCCC convention or not. I am not aware of any bindings in the device-tree for doing that.

The other issue is not all the firmware may be SMCCC capable. We may want in the future to support other convention to allow baremetal OS running on Xen. This means a guest should be able to detect the convention used.

I don't have a clear answer here yet, but thought it would be good to start a conversation.

Cheers,

--
Julien Grall

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.xen.org/xen-devel

 


Rackspace

Lists.xenproject.org is hosted with RackSpace, monitoring our
servers 24x7x365 and backed by RackSpace's Fanatical Support®.