RE: re-writing on powerpc

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: kvm-ppc-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:kvm-ppc-
> owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Avi Kivity
> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:18 PM
> To: Yoder Stuart-B08248
> Cc: Hollis Blanchard; Alexander Graf; kvm-ppc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: re-writing on powerpc
> 
> On 12/14/2010 05:45 PM, Yoder Stuart-B08248 wrote:
> > >  -----Original Message-----
> > >  From: Avi Kivity [mailto:avi@xxxxxxxxxx]
> > >  Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 2:49 AM
> > >  To: Hollis Blanchard
> > >  Cc: Yoder Stuart-B08248; Alexander Graf; kvm-ppc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > >  Subject: Re: re-writing on powerpc
> > >
> > >  On 12/13/2010 07:17 PM, Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> > >  >>  Rewriting is dangerous if the guest is unaware of it.  As soon
> > > as
> > it
> > >  >>  is made aware of it, it might as well actually do it in the
> > > best
> > way
> > >  >>  that suits it.
> > >  >
> > >  >  Can you list some examples of dangerous scenarios?
> > >  >
> > >
> > >  - guest checksums own kernel pages
> > >  - clever compiler reuses code for constant pool
> > >  - guest patches itself (a la linux alternatives), surprised when it
> > sees a
> > >  different instruction
> > >  - guest jits own kernel code (like Singularity), gets confused when
> > > it  reads back something it didn't write
> >
> > One possible solution to hiding rewriting from guest if it must be
> > hidden is to mark patched pages as execute only.  If a guest reads a
> > patched page, the hypervisor can fix up the read.
> >
> 
> Yes.  Something that is common to all the problems above is "using code
> as data".
> 
> However, execute only would only affect the page's mapping, not the page
> itself, yes?  So if the page has another mapping, this doesn't work.
> 

But KVM would be aware of guest page mappings, so access permissions for any particular mapping
can be controlled by KVM.

-Varun

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