On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 02:27:32AM +1200, Kai Huang wrote:
> The first few generations of TDX hardware have an erratum. Triggering
> it in Linux requires some kind of kernel bug involving relatively exotic
> memory writes to TDX private memory and will manifest via
> spurious-looking machine checks when reading the affected memory.
>
> == Background ==
>
> Virtually all kernel memory accesses operations happen in full
> cachelines. In practice, writing a "byte" of memory usually reads a 64
> byte cacheline of memory, modifies it, then writes the whole line back.
> Those operations do not trigger this problem.
>
> This problem is triggered by "partial" writes where a write transaction
> of less than cacheline lands at the memory controller. The CPU does
> these via non-temporal write instructions (like MOVNTI), or through
> UC/WC memory mappings. The issue can also be triggered away from the
> CPU by devices doing partial writes via DMA.
>
> == Problem ==
>
> A partial write to a TDX private memory cacheline will silently "poison"
> the line. Subsequent reads will consume the poison and generate a
> machine check. According to the TDX hardware spec, neither of these
> things should have happened.
>
> To add insult to injury, the Linux machine code will present these as a
> literal "Hardware error" when they were, in fact, a software-triggered
> issue.
>
> == Solution ==
>
> In the end, this issue is hard to trigger. Rather than do something
> rash (and incomplete) like unmap TDX private memory from the direct map,
> improve the machine check handler.
>
> Currently, the #MC handler doesn't distinguish whether the memory is
> TDX private memory or not but just dump, for instance, below message:
>
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: CPU 147: Machine Check Exception: f Bank 1: bd80000000100134
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: RIP 10:<ffffffffadb69870> {__tlb_remove_page_size+0x10/0xa0}
> ...
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: Run the above through 'mcelog --ascii'
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check: Data load in unrecoverable area of kernel
> [...] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal local machine check
>
> Which says "Hardware Error" and "Data load in unrecoverable area of
> kernel".
>
> Ideally, it's better for the log to say "software bug around TDX private
> memory" instead of "Hardware Error". But in reality the real hardware
> memory error can happen, and sadly such software-triggered #MC cannot be
> distinguished from the real hardware error. Also, the error message is
> used by userspace tool 'mcelog' to parse, so changing the output may
> break userspace.
>
> So keep the "Hardware Error". The "Data load in unrecoverable area of
> kernel" is also helpful, so keep it too.
>
> Instead of modifying above error log, improve the error log by printing
> additional TDX related message to make the log like:
>
> ...
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check: Data load in unrecoverable area of kernel
> [...] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine Check: Memory error from TDX private memory. May be result of CPU erratum.
The message mentions one part of issue -- CPU erratum -- but misses the
other required part -- kernel bug that makes kernel access the memory it
not suppose to.
--
Kiryl Shutsemau / Kirill A. Shutemov
