Re: [edk2-rfc] [edk2-devel] CPU hotplug using SMM with QEMU+OVMF

["Michael D Kinney" <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>]

Paolo,

It is my understanding that real HW hot plug uses the SDM defined
methods.  Meaning the initial SMI is to 3000:8000 and they rebase
to TSEG in the first SMI.  They must have chipset specific methods
to protect 3000:8000 from DMA.

Can we add a chipset feature to prevent DMA to 64KB range from
0x30000-0x3FFFF and the UEFI Memory Map and ACPI content can be
updated so the Guest OS knows to not use that range for DMA?

Thanks,

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paolo Bonzini [mailto:pbonzini@redhat.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2019 3:18 PM
> To: Kinney, Michael D <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>;
> Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>; rfc@edk2.groups.io;
> Yao, Jiewen <jiewen.yao@intel.com>
> Cc: Alex Williamson <alex.williamson@redhat.com>;
> devel@edk2.groups.io; qemu devel list <qemu-
> devel@nongnu.org>; Igor Mammedov <imammedo@redhat.com>;
> Chen, Yingwen <yingwen.chen@intel.com>; Nakajima, Jun
> <jun.nakajima@intel.com>; Boris Ostrovsky
> <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>; Joao Marcal Lemos Martins
> <joao.m.martins@oracle.com>; Phillip Goerl
> <phillip.goerl@oracle.com>
> Subject: Re: [edk2-rfc] [edk2-devel] CPU hotplug using
> SMM with QEMU+OVMF
> 
> On 22/08/19 22:06, Kinney, Michael D wrote:
> > The SMBASE register is internal and cannot be directly
> accessed by any
> > CPU.  There is an SMBASE field that is member of the
> SMM Save State
> > area and can only be modified from SMM and requires the
> execution of
> > an RSM instruction from SMM for the SMBASE register to
> be updated from
> > the current SMBASE field value.  The new SMBASE
> register value is only
> > used on the next SMI.
> 
> Actually there is also an SMBASE MSR, even though in
> current silicon it's read-only and its use is
> theoretically limited to SMM-transfer monitors.  If that
> MSR could be made accessible somehow outside SMM, that
> would be great.
> 
> > Once all the CPUs have been initialized for SMM, the
> CPUs that are not
> > needed can be hot removed.  As noted above, the SMBASE
> value does not
> > change on an INIT.  So as long as the hot add operation
> does not do a
> > RESET, the SMBASE value must be preserved.
> 
> IIRC, hot-remove + hot-add will unplugs/plugs a
> completely different CPU.
> 
> > Another idea is to emulate this behavior.  If the hot
> plug controller
> > provide registers (only accessible from SMM) to assign
> the SMBASE
> > address for every CPU.  When a CPU is hot added, QEMU
> can set the
> > internal SMBASE register value from the hot plug
> controller register
> > value.  If the SMM Monarch sends an INIT or an SMI from
> the Local APIC
> > to the hot added CPU, then the SMBASE register should
> not be modified
> > and the CPU starts execution within TSEG the first time
> it receives an SMI.
> 
> Yes, this would work.  But again---if the issue is real
> on current hardware too, I'd rather have a matching
> solution for virtual platforms.
> 
> If the current hardware for example remembers INIT-
> preserved across hot-remove/hot-add, we could emulate
> that.
> 
> I guess the fundamental question is: how do bare metal
> platforms avoid this issue, or plan to avoid this issue?
> Once we know that, we can use that information to find a
> way to implement it in KVM.  Only if it is impossible
> we'll have a different strategy that is specific to our
> platform.
> 
> Paolo
> 
> > Jiewen and I can collect specific questions on this
> topic and continue
> > the discussion here.  For example, I do not think there
> is any method
> > other than what I referenced above to program the
> SMBASE register, but
> > I can ask if there are any other methods.