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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/virt/kvm/msr.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/msr.txt b/Documentation/virt/kvm/msr.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..df1f4338b3ca --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/msr.txt @@ -0,0 +1,284 @@ +KVM-specific MSRs. +Glauber Costa <glommer@redhat.com>, Red Hat Inc, 2010 +===================================================== + +KVM makes use of some custom MSRs to service some requests. + +Custom MSRs have a range reserved for them, that goes from +0x4b564d00 to 0x4b564dff. There are MSRs outside this area, +but they are deprecated and their use is discouraged. + +Custom MSR list +-------- + +The current supported Custom MSR list is: + +MSR_KVM_WALL_CLOCK_NEW: 0x4b564d00 + + data: 4-byte alignment physical address of a memory area which must be + in guest RAM. This memory is expected to hold a copy of the following + structure: + + struct pvclock_wall_clock { + u32 version; + u32 sec; + u32 nsec; + } __attribute__((__packed__)); + + whose data will be filled in by the hypervisor. The hypervisor is only + guaranteed to update this data at the moment of MSR write. + Users that want to reliably query this information more than once have + to write more than once to this MSR. Fields have the following meanings: + + version: guest has to check version before and after grabbing + time information and check that they are both equal and even. + An odd version indicates an in-progress update. + + sec: number of seconds for wallclock at time of boot. + + nsec: number of nanoseconds for wallclock at time of boot. + + In order to get the current wallclock time, the system_time from + MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME_NEW needs to be added. + + Note that although MSRs are per-CPU entities, the effect of this + particular MSR is global. + + Availability of this MSR must be checked via bit 3 in 0x4000001 cpuid + leaf prior to usage. + +MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME_NEW: 0x4b564d01 + + data: 4-byte aligned physical address of a memory area which must be in + guest RAM, plus an enable bit in bit 0. This memory is expected to hold + a copy of the following structure: + + struct pvclock_vcpu_time_info { + u32 version; + u32 pad0; + u64 tsc_timestamp; + u64 system_time; + u32 tsc_to_system_mul; + s8 tsc_shift; + u8 flags; + u8 pad[2]; + } __attribute__((__packed__)); /* 32 bytes */ + + whose data will be filled in by the hypervisor periodically. Only one + write, or registration, is needed for each VCPU. The interval between + updates of this structure is arbitrary and implementation-dependent. + The hypervisor may update this structure at any time it sees fit until + anything with bit0 == 0 is written to it. + + Fields have the following meanings: + + version: guest has to check version before and after grabbing + time information and check that they are both equal and even. + An odd version indicates an in-progress update. + + tsc_timestamp: the tsc value at the current VCPU at the time + of the update of this structure. Guests can subtract this value + from current tsc to derive a notion of elapsed time since the + structure update. + + system_time: a host notion of monotonic time, including sleep + time at the time this structure was last updated. Unit is + nanoseconds. + + tsc_to_system_mul: multiplier to be used when converting + tsc-related quantity to nanoseconds + + tsc_shift: shift to be used when converting tsc-related + quantity to nanoseconds. This shift will ensure that + multiplication with tsc_to_system_mul does not overflow. + A positive value denotes a left shift, a negative value + a right shift. + + The conversion from tsc to nanoseconds involves an additional + right shift by 32 bits. With this information, guests can + derive per-CPU time by doing: + + time = (current_tsc - tsc_timestamp) + if (tsc_shift >= 0) + time <<= tsc_shift; + else + time >>= -tsc_shift; + time = (time * tsc_to_system_mul) >> 32 + time = time + system_time + + flags: bits in this field indicate extended capabilities + coordinated between the guest and the hypervisor. Availability + of specific flags has to be checked in 0x40000001 cpuid leaf. + Current flags are: + + flag bit | cpuid bit | meaning + ------------------------------------------------------------- + | | time measures taken across + 0 | 24 | multiple cpus are guaranteed to + | | be monotonic + ------------------------------------------------------------- + | | guest vcpu has been paused by + 1 | N/A | the host + | | See 4.70 in api.txt + ------------------------------------------------------------- + + Availability of this MSR must be checked via bit 3 in 0x4000001 cpuid + leaf prior to usage. + + +MSR_KVM_WALL_CLOCK: 0x11 + + data and functioning: same as MSR_KVM_WALL_CLOCK_NEW. Use that instead. + + This MSR falls outside the reserved KVM range and may be removed in the + future. Its usage is deprecated. + + Availability of this MSR must be checked via bit 0 in 0x4000001 cpuid + leaf prior to usage. + +MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME: 0x12 + + data and functioning: same as MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME_NEW. Use that instead. + + This MSR falls outside the reserved KVM range and may be removed in the + future. Its usage is deprecated. + + Availability of this MSR must be checked via bit 0 in 0x4000001 cpuid + leaf prior to usage. + + The suggested algorithm for detecting kvmclock presence is then: + + if (!kvm_para_available()) /* refer to cpuid.txt */ + return NON_PRESENT; + + flags = cpuid_eax(0x40000001); + if (flags & 3) { + msr_kvm_system_time = MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME_NEW; + msr_kvm_wall_clock = MSR_KVM_WALL_CLOCK_NEW; + return PRESENT; + } else if (flags & 0) { + msr_kvm_system_time = MSR_KVM_SYSTEM_TIME; + msr_kvm_wall_clock = MSR_KVM_WALL_CLOCK; + return PRESENT; + } else + return NON_PRESENT; + +MSR_KVM_ASYNC_PF_EN: 0x4b564d02 + data: Bits 63-6 hold 64-byte aligned physical address of a + 64 byte memory area which must be in guest RAM and must be + zeroed. Bits 5-3 are reserved and should be zero. Bit 0 is 1 + when asynchronous page faults are enabled on the vcpu 0 when + disabled. Bit 1 is 1 if asynchronous page faults can be injected + when vcpu is in cpl == 0. Bit 2 is 1 if asynchronous page faults + are delivered to L1 as #PF vmexits. Bit 2 can be set only if + KVM_FEATURE_ASYNC_PF_VMEXIT is present in CPUID. + + First 4 byte of 64 byte memory location will be written to by + the hypervisor at the time of asynchronous page fault (APF) + injection to indicate type of asynchronous page fault. Value + of 1 means that the page referred to by the page fault is not + present. Value 2 means that the page is now available. Disabling + interrupt inhibits APFs. Guest must not enable interrupt + before the reason is read, or it may be overwritten by another + APF. Since APF uses the same exception vector as regular page + fault guest must reset the reason to 0 before it does + something that can generate normal page fault. If during page + fault APF reason is 0 it means that this is regular page + fault. + + During delivery of type 1 APF cr2 contains a token that will + be used to notify a guest when missing page becomes + available. When page becomes available type 2 APF is sent with + cr2 set to the token associated with the page. There is special + kind of token 0xffffffff which tells vcpu that it should wake + up all processes waiting for APFs and no individual type 2 APFs + will be sent. + + If APF is disabled while there are outstanding APFs, they will + not be delivered. + + Currently type 2 APF will be always delivered on the same vcpu as + type 1 was, but guest should not rely on that. + +MSR_KVM_STEAL_TIME: 0x4b564d03 + + data: 64-byte alignment physical address of a memory area which must be + in guest RAM, plus an enable bit in bit 0. This memory is expected to + hold a copy of the following structure: + + struct kvm_steal_time { + __u64 steal; + __u32 version; + __u32 flags; + __u8 preempted; + __u8 u8_pad[3]; + __u32 pad[11]; + } + + whose data will be filled in by the hypervisor periodically. Only one + write, or registration, is needed for each VCPU. The interval between + updates of this structure is arbitrary and implementation-dependent. + The hypervisor may update this structure at any time it sees fit until + anything with bit0 == 0 is written to it. Guest is required to make sure + this structure is initialized to zero. + + Fields have the following meanings: + + version: a sequence counter. In other words, guest has to check + this field before and after grabbing time information and make + sure they are both equal and even. An odd version indicates an + in-progress update. + + flags: At this point, always zero. May be used to indicate + changes in this structure in the future. + + steal: the amount of time in which this vCPU did not run, in + nanoseconds. Time during which the vcpu is idle, will not be + reported as steal time. + + preempted: indicate the vCPU who owns this struct is running or + not. Non-zero values mean the vCPU has been preempted. Zero + means the vCPU is not preempted. NOTE, it is always zero if the + the hypervisor doesn't support this field. + +MSR_KVM_EOI_EN: 0x4b564d04 + data: Bit 0 is 1 when PV end of interrupt is enabled on the vcpu; 0 + when disabled. Bit 1 is reserved and must be zero. When PV end of + interrupt is enabled (bit 0 set), bits 63-2 hold a 4-byte aligned + physical address of a 4 byte memory area which must be in guest RAM and + must be zeroed. + + The first, least significant bit of 4 byte memory location will be + written to by the hypervisor, typically at the time of interrupt + injection. Value of 1 means that guest can skip writing EOI to the apic + (using MSR or MMIO write); instead, it is sufficient to signal + EOI by clearing the bit in guest memory - this location will + later be polled by the hypervisor. + Value of 0 means that the EOI write is required. + + It is always safe for the guest to ignore the optimization and perform + the APIC EOI write anyway. + + Hypervisor is guaranteed to only modify this least + significant bit while in the current VCPU context, this means that + guest does not need to use either lock prefix or memory ordering + primitives to synchronise with the hypervisor. + + However, hypervisor can set and clear this memory bit at any time: + therefore to make sure hypervisor does not interrupt the + guest and clear the least significant bit in the memory area + in the window between guest testing it to detect + whether it can skip EOI apic write and between guest + clearing it to signal EOI to the hypervisor, + guest must both read the least significant bit in the memory area and + clear it using a single CPU instruction, such as test and clear, or + compare and exchange. + +MSR_KVM_POLL_CONTROL: 0x4b564d05 + Control host-side polling. + + data: Bit 0 enables (1) or disables (0) host-side HLT polling logic. + + KVM guests can request the host not to poll on HLT, for example if + they are performing polling themselves. + |