Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] x86/nmi: lower initial watchdog frequency to avoid boot hangs

[Alexey G <x1917x@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2018 17:21:19 +0000
Igor Druzhinin <igor.druzhinin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On 06/02/18 17:08, Alexey G wrote:
>> The major concern here is the possiblity of SMI being triggered _not_
>> by some specific I/O port access. Primarily, if it actually was a
>> periodic SMI.
>> 
>> If the actual SMI source is not related to some place in the NMI
>> handler code but was eg. due to some SMI timer, lowering NMI watchdog
>> frequency might not fix the issue completely, but lower its
>> reproducibility (perhaps to some very rare occurrences). So it's
>> better be sure what was the real source of SMI.
>>   
>
>This *is* related to this instruction - it was confirmed empirically.
>Removing this instruction stops SMIs from occurring and effectively
>removes the issue leaving the frequency unchanged.

Hmm, it would be interesting to know for what evil purpose does it need
to trap I/O port 61h.
BTW, on which motherboard model the issue was reproduced?

>> 2. According to the code, it looks like NMI status reading happens
>> while NMIs are still blocked -- this means that SMI handler must
>> exec IRET by itself to reset NMI blocking state -- again, this is
>> possible (eg. in unreal->protmode switching code), but not likely.
>>   
>
>According to SDM one NMI might be pending while taken in SMI mode (see
>ch. 34.8). This is actually even true if NMI comes while servicing
>another NMI. So when we return to the NMI handler from SMI and finish
>it properly the next one appears immediately.

If the SMI handler doesn't mess up with NMI blocking state, it
means that SMI handler processes every reading of port 61h longer than a
watchdog NMI period duration... which is quite long. Motherboard vendor
did something very wrong with I/O trap handling in the SMI handler code
if it takes so much.

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