Setup gcloud account

Loign to console

Create a VM ( for this project i created with following features machine type: n2-standard-2 OS: Ubntu )

Connect to machine using either by Browser based SSH or your own machine

Install gcloud CLI
https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install

Once intsalled initialize gcloud CLI
gcloud init

We need to enable nested virtualization inorder to discover VMX features

To enable nested virtualization
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/nested-virtualization/enabling

In our case we already have a VM so we will export the property of the instance using

• gcloud compute instances export instance-1 --destination=export.yaml --zone=us-west4-b

• Add following text to export.yaml file if its not already there

  advancedMachineFeatures:
     enableNestedVirtualization: true
  

• Update the VM with following command
  gcloud compute instances update-from-file instance-1 --source=export.yaml --most-disruptive-allowed-action=RESTART --zone=us-west4-b

To check if nested virtualization is enabled, connect to VM and run the following command,it should any number other than 0
grep -cw vmx /proc/cpuinfo

Create a directory and add the files Makefile and .c file to find the features

But first install dependencies
sudo bash
apt install gcc make
exit
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

If some issue with gcc then run update command and install again
update apt-get
apt install gcc
apt install make

Run make to create output inside the directory
make

Once you see the autogenerated files to see the output load the .ko file in kernel and read
sudo insmod cmpe283-1.ko
dmesg

To find about the MSR and controls that you want query
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/develop/public/us/en/documents/325384-sdm-vol-3abcd.pdf

For this project i have queried following 6 MSRs

• IA32_VMX_PINBASED_CTLS (5 controls)
• IA32_VMX_PROCBASED_CTLS (22 controls)
• IA32_VMX_PROCBASED_CTLS2 (27 controls)
• IA32_VMX_EXIT_CTLS (16 controls)
• IA32_VMX_ENTRY_CTLS (13 controls)
• IA32_VMX_PROCBASED_CTLS3 (4 controls)

Some observations about the output

• In primary procbased controls in my Vm the ability to set “Activate Secondary Controls” was true and for “Activate Tertiary Controls” was false.
• In tertiary procbased control the ability to set for all 4 controls were false.