RE: [PATCH 1/4] x86/sgx: Add total number of EPC pages

[Reshetova, Elena]

> On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 12:12:41PM +0000, Reshetova, Elena wrote:
> > > On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 02:34:40PM +0200, Elena Reshetova wrote:
> > > > In order to successfully execute ENCLS[EUPDATESVN], EPC must be
> empty.
> > > > SGX already has a variable sgx_nr_free_pages that tracks free
> > > > EPC pages. Add a new variable, sgx_nr_total_pages, that will keep
> > > > track of total number of EPC pages. It will be used in subsequent
> > > > patch to change the sgx_nr_free_pages into sgx_nr_used_pages and
> > > > allow an easy check for an empty EPC.
> > >
> > > First off, remove "in subsequent patch".
> >
> > Ok
> >
> > >
> > > What does "change sgx_nr_free_pages into sgx_nr_used_pages" mean?
> >
> > As you can see from patch 2/4, I had to turn around the meaning of the
> > existing sgx_nr_free_pages atomic counter not to count the # of free pages
> > in EPC, but to count the # of used EPC pages (hence the change of name
> > to sgx_nr_used_pages). The reason for doing this is only apparent in patch
> 
> Why you *absolutely* need to invert the meaning and cannot make
> this work by any means otherwise?
> 
> I doubt highly doubt this could not be done other way around.

I can make it work. The point that this way is much better and no damage to
existing logic is done. The sgx_nr_free_pages counter that is used only for 
page reclaiming
and checked in a single piece of code.
To give you an idea the previous iteration of the code looked like below.
First, I had to define a new unconditional spinlock to protect the EPC page 
allocation:

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/sgx/main.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/sgx/main.c
index c8a2542140a1..4f445c28929b 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/sgx/main.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/sgx/main.c
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ static DEFINE_XARRAY(sgx_epc_address_space);
  */
 static LIST_HEAD(sgx_active_page_list);
 static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(sgx_reclaimer_lock);
+static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);
 
 static atomic_long_t sgx_nr_free_pages = ATOMIC_LONG_INIT(0);
 static unsigned long sgx_nr_total_pages;
@@ -457,7 +458,10 @@ static struct sgx_epc_page 
*__sgx_alloc_epc_page_from_node(int nid)
  page->flags = 0;
 
  spin_unlock(&node->lock);
+
+ spin_lock(&sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);
  atomic_long_dec(&sgx_nr_free_pages);
+ spin_unlock(&sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);
 
  return page;
 }

And then also take spinlock every time eupdatesvn attempts to run:

int sgx_updatesvn(void)
+{
+ int ret;
+ int retry = 10;
+
+ spin_lock(&sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);
+
+ if (atomic_long_read(&sgx_nr_free_pages) != sgx_nr_total_pages) {
+ spin_unlock(&sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);
+ return SGX_EPC_NOT_READY;
+ }
+
+ do {
+ ret = __eupdatesvn();
+ if (ret != SGX_INSUFFICIENT_ENTROPY)
+ break;
+
+ } while (--retry);
+
+ spin_unlock(&sgx_allocate_epc_page_lock);

Which was called from each enclave create ioctl:

@@ -163,6 +163,11 @@ static long sgx_ioc_enclave_create(struct sgx_encl *encl, 
void __user *arg)
  if (copy_from_user(&create_arg, arg, sizeof(create_arg)))
  return -EFAULT;
 
+ /* Unless running in a VM, execute EUPDATESVN if instruction is avalible */
+ if ((cpuid_eax(SGX_CPUID) & SGX_CPUID_EUPDATESVN) &&
+    !boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_HYPERVISOR))
+ sgx_updatesvn();
+
  secs = kmalloc(PAGE_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL);
  if (!secs)
  return -ENOMEM;

Would you agree that this way it is much worse even code/logic-wise even 
without benchmarks? 

Best Regards,
Elena.