Category: Software Debug and Trace

In part 1 of my explorations into Hypervisor-Managed Linear Address Translation (HLAT), I installed a Canary build on my AAEON UP Xtreme i12 Alder Lake board, and booted to the Windows desktop to see the VMCS field indicating that HLAT was enabled. This time, I isolated some of the code that actually turns it on.
The AAEON UP Xtreme i12 Core i7-1270PE board is unique, because, in addition to being able to debug it with JTAG using the Intel Direct Connect Interface (DCI), its CPU has support for Virtualization Technology Redirect Protection: VT-rp. VT-rp is a foundational requirement for advanced security features, specifically Hypervisor-managed Linear Address Translation (HLAT), Paging-Write (PW), and Guest-Paging Verification (GPV).
In the last couple of articles in this series, Iโ€™ve focused on basic run-control debugging used in conjunction with Intel Processor Trace (Intel PT). In this installment, weโ€™ll start looking at the use of Architectural Event Trace (AET) to explore the Windows hypervisor, and how MSR accesses in particular are handled.
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