Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developers Manual Volume 3B, System Programming Guide Part 2

Table Of Contents
Vol. 3 G-9
VMX CAPABILITY REPORTING FACILITY
larly, if bit X is 0 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED1, then that bit of CR4 is fixed to 0 in VMX
operation. It is always the case that, if bit X is 1 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED0, then
that bit is also 1 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED1; if bit X is 0 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED1,
then that bit is also 0 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED0. Thus, each bit in CR4 is either fixed
to 0 (with value 0 in both MSRs), fixed to 1 (1 in both MSRs), or flexible (0 in
IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED0 and 1 in IA32_VMX_CR4_FIXED1).
G.9 VMCS ENUMERATION
The IA32_VMX_VMCS_ENUM MSR (index 48AH) provides information to assist soft-
ware in enumerating fields in the VMCS.
As noted in Section 20.10.2, each field in the VMCS is associated with a 32-bit
encoding which is structured as follows:
Bits 31:15 are reserved (must be 0).
Bits 14:13 indicate the field’s width.
Bit 12 is reserved (must be 0).
Bits 11:10 indicate the field’s type.
Bits 9:1 is an index field that distinguishes different fields with the same width
and type.
Bit 0 indicates access type.
IA32_VMX_VMCS_ENUM indicates to software the highest index value used in the
encoding of any field supported by the processor:
Bits 9:1 contain the highest index value used for any VMCS encoding.
Bit 0 and bits 63:10 are reserved and are read as 0.
G.10 VPID AND EPT CAPABILITIES
The IA32_VMX_EPT_VPID_CAP MSR (index 48CH) reports information about the
capabilities of the logical processor with regard to virtual-processor identifiers
(VPIDs, Section 24.1) and extended page tables (EPT, Section 24.2):
If bit 0 is read as 1, the logical processor allows software to configure EPT
paging-structure entries in which bits 2:0 have value 100b (indicating an
execute-only translation).
Bit 6 indicates support for a page-walk length of 4.
If bit 8 is read as 1, the logical processor allows software to configure the EPT
paging-structure memory type to be uncacheable (UC); see Section 20.6.11.
If bit 14 is read as 1, the logical processor allows software to configure the EPT
paging-structure memory type to be write-back (WB).