KVM: vmx: add dedicated utility to access guest's kernel_gs_base
When lazy save/restore of MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE was introduced[1], the
MSR was intercepted in all modes and was only restored for the host
when the guest is in 64-bit mode. So at the time, going through the
full host restore prior to accessing MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE was necessary
to load host state and was not a significant waste of cycles.
Later, MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE interception was disabled for a 64-bit
guest[2], and then unconditionally saved/restored for the host[3].
As a result, loading full host state is overkill for accesses to
MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE, and completely unnecessary when the guest is
not in 64-bit mode.
Add a dedicated utility to read/write the guest's MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE
(outside of the save/restore flow) to minimize the overhead incurred
when accessing the MSR. When setting EFER, only decache the MSR if
the new EFER will disable long mode.
Removing out-of-band usage of vmx_load_host_state() also eliminates,
or at least reduces, potential corner cases in its usage, which in
turn will (hopefuly) make it easier to reason about future changes
to the save/restore flow, e.g. optimization of saving host state.
[1] commit 44ea2b1758d8 ("KVM: VMX: Move MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE out of the vmx
autoload msr area")
[2] commit 5897297bc228 ("KVM: VMX: Don't intercept MSR_KERNEL_GS_BASE")
[3] commit c8770e7ba63b ("KVM: VMX: Fix host userspace gsbase corruption")
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
1 file changed