Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2] x86/boot: enable NMIs after traps init

[Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 23/10/18 17:42, Ross Philipson wrote:
>
> On 10/23/2018 11:31 AM, Jason Andryuk wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 10:46 AM Andrew Cooper
>> <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On 23/10/18 15:01, Jason Andryuk wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 7:15 AM Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> On 23/10/18 11:59, Sergey Dyasli wrote:
>>>>>> In certain scenarios, NMIs might be disabled during Xen boot process.
>>>>>> Such situation will cause alternative_instructions() to:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     panic("Timed out waiting for alternatives self-NMI to hit");
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This bug was originally seen when using Tboot to boot Xen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To prevent this from happening, enable NMIs during cpu_init() and
>>>>>> during __start_xen() for BSP.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Sergey Dyasli <sergey.dyasli@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> Reviewed-by: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> FYI, Ross and Eric came up with a tboot patch recently added to OpenXT:
>>>> https://github.com/OpenXT/xenclient-oe/blob/master/recipes-openxt/tboot/tboot-1.9.6/0023-tboot-Unmask-NMI-potentially-masked-during-SENTER.patch
>>>>
>>>> Using this Xen patch with the tboot one reverted works too.
>>>>
>>>> Tested-by: Jason Andryuk <jandryuk@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> :(
>>>
>>> Can bugs like this please be reported upstream?  Given the observation
>>> of "Tboot hands off with NMIs disabled", the fix is very easy.
>> I'm not opposed to reporting upstream.  In this case, I at least
>> assumed it was something we did in our EFI & tboot combo.  An Ivy
>> Bridge legacy boot system with tboot & Xen worked fine.  For me, it
>> was only a newer Skylake (or Kaby Lake) machine that had issue when
>> booting our EFI & tboot combo.  So it wasn't clear that tboot always
>> left NMIs disabled.  Yes, we should have reported something upstream
>> as a heads up for other tboot/Xen users.
> According to the specs, NMIs and SMIs are disabled post launch on the BSP and
> after AP wakeup is done. The TBOOT code explicitly re-enables SMIs but 
> currently
> not NMIs. Any IRET later on would have re-enabled them so it might explain how
> they incidentally get re-enabled in certain configurations.
>
> Personally I think the fix to re-enable them in TBOOT should go upstream.

Which spec?  Can it be changed/improved?

I accept this might be what it currently says, but enabling NMIs before
the OS is capable of handling them is only going to cause sad users on
anything but a completely idle system.

x86 is a gnarley architecture when it comes to this level of detail.  It
is not possible for a kernel to be a mode transition (real => protected,
or into long mode) and handle interrupts safely, because we can't
atomically set the mode and change the layout/position of the IDT.

We can at least avoid taking #MC when it is definitely unsafe to do so,
by not having CR4.MCE set.  An #MC at that point will be terminal to the
system, but you've got hardware problems at that point and all bets were
off anyway.  (Also, for those not keeping score on L1 Terminal Fault and
disabling hyperthreads threads, if any single one of your hyperthreads
has CR4.MCE clear, e.g. because your in the middle of booting it, an #MC
is fatal to the system.)

For NMI's the only way of guaranteeing that one doesn't arrive until the
IDT is set up properly is to leave the NMI shadow active until the OS
explicitly decided that it is safe.

While some might be viewed as a bug in tboot, I view it as a feature
which should be retained.  How late can late launches occur in practice?

~Andrew

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