/* $Id: Docs-RawMode.cpp 98103 2023-01-17 14:15:46Z vboxsync $ */ /** @file * This file contains the documentation of the raw-mode execution. */ /* * Copyright (C) 2006-2023 Oracle and/or its affiliates. * * This file is part of VirtualBox base platform packages, as * available from https://www.virtualbox.org. * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License * as published by the Free Software Foundation, in version 3 of the * License. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU * General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program; if not, see . * * SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only */ /** @page pg_raw Raw-mode Code Execution * * VirtualBox 0.0 thru 6.0 implemented a mode of guest code execution that * allowed executing mostly raw guest code directly the host CPU but without any * support from VT-x or AMD-V. It was implemented for AMD64, AMD-V and VT-x * were available (former) or even specified (latter two). This mode was * removed in 6.1 (code ripped out) as it was mostly unused by that point and * not worth the effort of maintaining. * * A future VirtualBox version may reintroduce a new kind of raw-mode for * emulating non-x86 architectures, making use of the host MMU to efficiently * emulate the target MMU. This is just a wild idea at this point. * * * @section sec_old_rawmode Old Raw-mode * * Running guest code unmodified on the host CPU is reasonably unproblematic for * ring-3 code when it runs without IOPL=3. There will be some information * leaks thru CPUID, a bunch of 286 area unprivileged instructions revealing * privileged information (like SGDT, SIDT, SLDT, STR, SMSW), and hypervisor * selectors can probably be identified using VERR, VERW and such instructions. * However, it generally works fine for half friendly software when the CPUID * difference between the target and host isn't too big. * * Kernel code can be executed on the host CPU too, however it needs to be * pushed up a ring (guest ring-0 to ring-1, guest ring-1 to ring2) to let the * hypervisor (VMMRC.rc) be in charge of ring-0. Ring compression causes * issues when CS or SS are pushed and inspected by the guest, since the values * will have bit 0 set whereas the guest expects that bit to be cleared. In * addition there are problematic instructions like POPF and IRET that the guest * code uses to restore/modify EFLAGS.IF state, however the CPU just silently * ignores EFLAGS.IF when it isn't running in ring-0 (or with an appropriate * IOPL), which causes major headache. The SIDT, SGDT, STR, SLDT and SMSW * instructions also causes problems since they will return information about * the hypervisor rather than the guest state and cannot be trapped. * * So, guest kernel code needed to be scanned (by CSAM) and problematic * instructions or sequences patched or recompiled (by PATM). * * The raw-mode execution operates in a slightly modified guest memory context, * so memory accesses can be done directly without any checking or masking. The * modification was to insert the hypervisor in an unused portion of the the * page tables, making it float around and require it to be relocated when the * guest mapped code into the area it was occupying. * * The old raw-mode code was 32-bit only because its inception predates the * availability of the AMD64 architecture and the promise of AMD-V and VT-x made * it unnecessary to do a 64-bit version of the mode. (A long-mode port of the * raw-mode execution hypvisor could in theory have been used for both 32-bit * and 64-bit guest, making the relocating unnecessary for 32-bit guests, * however v8086 mode does not work when the CPU is operating in long-mode made * it a little less attractive.) * * * @section sec_rawmode_v2 Raw-mode v2 * * The vision for the reinvention of raw-mode execution is to put it inside * VT-x/AMD-V and run non-native instruction sets via a recompiler. * * The main motivation is TLB emulation using the host MMU. An added benefit is * would be that the non-native instruction sets would be add-ons put on top of * the existing x86/AMD64 virtualization product and therefore not require a * complete separate product build. * * * Outline: * * - Plug-in based, so the target architecture specific stuff is mostly in * separate modules (ring-3, ring-0 (optional) and raw-mode images). * * - Only 64-bit mode code (no problem since VirtualBox requires a 64-bit host * since 6.0). So, not reintroducing structure alignment pain from old RC. * * - Map the RC-hypervisor modules as ROM, using the shadowing feature for the * data sections. * * - Use MMIO2-like regions for all the memory that the RC-hypervisor needs, * all shared with the associated host side plug-in components. * * - The ROM and MMIO2 regions does not directly end up in the saved state, the * state is instead saved by the ring-3 architecture module. * * - Device access thru MMIO mappings could be done transparently thru to the * x86/AMD64 core VMM. It would however be possible to reintroduce the RC * side device handling, as that will not be removed in the old-RC cleanup. * * - Virtual memory managed by the RC-hypervisor, optionally with help of the * ring-3 and/or ring-0 architecture modules. * * - The mapping of the RC modules and memory will probably have to runtime * relocatable again, like it was in the old RC. Though initially and for * 32-bit target architectures, we will probably use a fixed mapping. * * - Memory accesses must unfortunately be range checked before being issued, * in order to prevent the guest code from accessing the hypervisor. The * recompiled code must be able to run, modify state, call ROM code, update * statistics and such, so we cannot use page table stuff protect the * hypervisor code & data. (If long mode implement segment limits, we * could've used that, but it doesn't.) * * - The RC-hypervisor will make hypercalls to communicate with the ring-0 and * ring-3 host code. * * - The host side should be able to dig out the current guest state from * information (think AMD64 unwinding) stored in translation blocks. * * - Non-atomic state updates outside TBs could be flagged so the host know * how to roll the back. * * - SMP must be taken into account early on. * * - As must existing IEM-based recompiler ideas, preferrably sharing code * (basically compiling IEM targetting the other architecture). * * The actual implementation will depend a lot on which architectures are * targeted and how they can be mapped onto AMD64/x86. It is possible that * there are some significan roadblocks preventing us from using the host MMU * efficiently even. AMD64 is for instance rather low on virtual address space * compared to several other 64-bit architectures, which means we'll generate a * lot of \#GPs when the guest tries to access spaced reserved on AMD64. The * proposed 5-level page tables will help with this, of course, but that need to * get into silicon and into user computers for it to be really helpful. * * One thing that helps a lot is that we don't have to consider 32-bit x86 any * more, meaning that the recompiler only need to generate 64-bit code and can * assume having 15-16 GPRs at its disposal. * */