[PATCH 5.10.y] KVM: arm64: Retry fault if vma_lookup() results become invalid
Bjoern Doebel
doebel at amazon.de
Fri Aug 21 02:05:38 PDT 2026
From: David Matlack <dmatlack at google.com>
commit 13ec9308a85702af7c31f3638a2720863848a7f2 upstream.
Read mmu_invalidate_seq before dropping the mmap_lock so that KVM can
detect if the results of vma_lookup() (e.g. vma_shift) become stale
before it acquires kvm->mmu_lock. This fixes a theoretical bug where a
VMA could be changed by userspace after vma_lookup() and before KVM
reads the mmu_invalidate_seq, causing KVM to install page table entries
based on a (possibly) no-longer-valid vma_shift.
Re-order the MMU cache top-up to earlier in user_mem_abort() so that it
is not done after KVM has read mmu_invalidate_seq (i.e. so as to avoid
inducing spurious fault retries).
This bug has existed since KVM/ARM's inception. It's unlikely that any
sane userspace currently modifies VMAs in such a way as to trigger this
race. And even with directed testing I was unable to reproduce it. But a
sufficiently motivated host userspace might be able to exploit this
race.
Fixes: 94f8e6418d39 ("KVM: ARM: Handle guest faults in KVM")
Cc: stable at vger.kernel.org
Reported-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc at google.com>
Signed-off-by: David Matlack <dmatlack at google.com>
Reviewed-by: Marc Zyngier <maz at kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230313235454.2964067-1-dmatlack@google.com
Signed-off-by: Oliver Upton <oliver.upton at linux.dev>
[doebel: adjust to contextual and naming differences in 5.10]
Signed-off-by: Bjoern Doebel <doebel at amazon.de>
---
The fix is already present in every newer supported stable tree, so
5.10.y is the only one left without it:
5.15.y 00f74003edf5 (backport)
6.1.y e1562cc202c9 (backport)
6.6.y and later contain the mainline commit 13ec9308a857 itself
Tested using the Amazon Linux kernel test suite.
arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c | 42 ++++++++++++++++++++----------------------
1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
index 26068456ec0f3..2cda74acada2e 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
@@ -769,6 +769,19 @@ static int user_mem_abort(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, phys_addr_t fault_ipa,
return -EFAULT;
}
+ /*
+ * Permission faults just need to update the existing leaf entry,
+ * and so normally don't require allocations from the memcache. The
+ * only exception to this is when dirty logging is enabled at runtime
+ * and a write fault needs to collapse a block entry into a table.
+ */
+ if (fault_status != FSC_PERM || (logging_active && write_fault)) {
+ ret = kvm_mmu_topup_memory_cache(memcache,
+ kvm_mmu_cache_min_pages(kvm));
+ if (ret)
+ return ret;
+ }
+
/* Let's check if we will get back a huge page backed by hugetlbfs */
mmap_read_lock(current->mm);
vma = find_vma_intersection(current->mm, hva, hva + 1);
@@ -818,32 +831,17 @@ static int user_mem_abort(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, phys_addr_t fault_ipa,
fault_ipa &= ~(vma_pagesize - 1);
gfn = fault_ipa >> PAGE_SHIFT;
- mmap_read_unlock(current->mm);
/*
- * Permission faults just need to update the existing leaf entry,
- * and so normally don't require allocations from the memcache. The
- * only exception to this is when dirty logging is enabled at runtime
- * and a write fault needs to collapse a block entry into a table.
+ * Read mmu_notifier_seq so that KVM can detect if the results of
+ * find_vma_intersection() or gfn_to_pfn_prot() become stale prior to
+ * acquiring kvm->mmu_lock.
+ *
+ * Rely on mmap_read_unlock() for an implicit smp_rmb(), which pairs
+ * with the smp_wmb() in kvm_mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_end().
*/
- if (fault_status != FSC_PERM || (logging_active && write_fault)) {
- ret = kvm_mmu_topup_memory_cache(memcache,
- kvm_mmu_cache_min_pages(kvm));
- if (ret)
- return ret;
- }
-
mmu_seq = vcpu->kvm->mmu_notifier_seq;
- /*
- * Ensure the read of mmu_notifier_seq happens before we call
- * gfn_to_pfn_prot (which calls get_user_pages), so that we don't risk
- * the page we just got a reference to gets unmapped before we have a
- * chance to grab the mmu_lock, which ensure that if the page gets
- * unmapped afterwards, the call to kvm_unmap_hva will take it away
- * from us again properly. This smp_rmb() interacts with the smp_wmb()
- * in kvm_mmu_notifier_invalidate_<page|range_end>.
- */
- smp_rmb();
+ mmap_read_unlock(current->mm);
pfn = gfn_to_pfn_prot(kvm, gfn, write_fault, &writable);
if (pfn == KVM_PFN_ERR_HWPOISON) {
--
2.51.0
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