[PATCH v3] KVM: arm64: Reject guest_memfd memslots when the VM has MTE
Alexandru Elisei
alexandru.elisei at arm.com
Tue Jul 21 03:06:54 PDT 2026
The user cannot use MTE on VMAs created by mapping a guest_memfd file,
as arch_calc_vm_flag_bits() does not set VM_MTE_ALLOWED.
When creating a guest_memfd backed memslot,
kvm_arch_prepare_memory_region() rejects the memslot if MTE is enabled for
the VM and if guest_memfd has been mapped in a VMA that intersects the
memslot.
However, the documentation for KVM_SET_USER_MEMORY_REGION2 explicitly
states that the only condition for userspace_addr is for it to be a legal
userspace address, but the mapping is not required to be valid nor
populated at memslot creation.
If userspace sets userspace_addr to an address that hasn't been mapped, or
if userspace_addr belongs to a VMA that isn't backed by the guest_memfd
file, or if the VMA doesn't intersect the memslot, memslot creation is
successful and KVM ends up with a VM with MTE and guest_memfd-backed
memslots.
The same happens if the order is reversed: when userspace enables MTE, KVM
does not check if memslots backed by guest_memfd are already present.
Fix both issues by rejecting guest_memfd-backed memslots when MTE is
enabled, and by rejecting MTE when guest_memfd-backed memslots are already
present.
Fixes: 32e200bd6e44 ("KVM: arm64: Enable support for guest_memfd backed memory")
Tested-by: Fuad Tabba <fuad.tabba at linux.dev>
Signed-off-by: Alexandru Elisei <alexandru.elisei at arm.com>
---
v2 can be found at [1].
Changes in v3:
* Documented that guest_memfd and MTE are incompatible (Marc).
* Added the Tested-by tag from Fuad (thanks!), but I didn't pick up his
Reviewed-by tag. Fuad added guest_memfd support to arm64, and the changes
to the docs look like something that he might have an opinion about.
Did similar testing as for v2, except now I actually remembered to enable
lockdep in the host (duh).
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/kvmarm/20260720130942.135033-1-alexandru.elisei@arm.com/
Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst | 5 +++++
arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++------
arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c | 4 ++++
3 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
index a5f9ee92f43e..53547fac5e37 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
@@ -8414,6 +8414,11 @@ When this capability is enabled all memory in memslots must be mapped as
attempts to create a memslot with an invalid mmap will result in an
-EINVAL return.
+``guest_memfd``, even though is an anonymous file, is incompatible with MTE.
+Attempting to create a memslot backed by ``guest_memfd`` when the MTE capability
+is enabled, or attempting to enable the MTE capability after ``guest_memfd``
+backed memslots have been created, will result in an error.
+
When enabled the VMM may make use of the ``KVM_ARM_MTE_COPY_TAGS`` ioctl to
perform a bulk copy of tags to/from the guest.
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
index 50adfff75be8..9a6c72a18672 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
@@ -149,14 +149,27 @@ int kvm_vm_ioctl_enable_cap(struct kvm *kvm,
set_bit(KVM_ARCH_FLAG_RETURN_NISV_IO_ABORT_TO_USER,
&kvm->arch.flags);
break;
- case KVM_CAP_ARM_MTE:
- mutex_lock(&kvm->lock);
- if (system_supports_mte() && !kvm->created_vcpus) {
- r = 0;
- set_bit(KVM_ARCH_FLAG_MTE_ENABLED, &kvm->arch.flags);
+ case KVM_CAP_ARM_MTE: {
+ struct kvm_memory_slot *memslot;
+ int bkt;
+
+ guard(mutex)(&kvm->lock);
+ if (!system_supports_mte() || kvm->created_vcpus)
+ break;
+
+ r = 0;
+ guard(mutex)(&kvm->slots_lock);
+ kvm_for_each_memslot(memslot, bkt, kvm_memslots(kvm)) {
+ if (kvm_slot_has_gmem(memslot)) {
+ r = -EINVAL;
+ break;
+ }
}
- mutex_unlock(&kvm->lock);
+ if (r == 0)
+ set_bit(KVM_ARCH_FLAG_MTE_ENABLED, &kvm->arch.flags);
break;
+
+ }
case KVM_CAP_ARM_SYSTEM_SUSPEND:
r = 0;
set_bit(KVM_ARCH_FLAG_SYSTEM_SUSPEND_ENABLED, &kvm->arch.flags);
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
index 6c941aaa10c6..2d95203386ba 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
@@ -2652,6 +2652,10 @@ int kvm_arch_prepare_memory_region(struct kvm *kvm,
if (kvm_slot_has_gmem(new) && !kvm_memslot_is_gmem_only(new))
return -EINVAL;
+ /* guest_memfd is incompatible with MTE. */
+ if (kvm_slot_has_gmem(new) && kvm_has_mte(kvm))
+ return -EINVAL;
+
hva = new->userspace_addr;
reg_end = hva + (new->npages << PAGE_SHIFT);
base-commit: 1590cf0329716306e948a8fc29f1d3ee87d3989f
--
2.55.0
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