[RFC PATCH] KVM: arm64: Align KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT error codes with documentation
Alexandru Elisei
alexandru.elisei at arm.com
Wed May 6 03:50:53 PDT 2026
The documentation for KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT states:
'Note! KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT is unique among all KVM exit reasons in that
it accompanies a return code of '-1', not '0'! errno will always be set to
EFAULT or EHWPOISON when KVM exits with KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT, userspace
should assume kvm_run.exit_reason is stale/undefined for all other error
numbers'.
where a return code of '-1' is special because according to man 2 ioctl:
'On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error'.
Putting the two together means that the ioctl KVM_RUN must 1) complete with
an error and 2) that error must must be either EFAULT or EHWPOISON for
userspace to detect a KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT VCPU exit.
On a kvm_gmem_get_pfn() error, gmem_abort() prepares the
KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT exit_reason and propagates the error back to
userspace. kvm_gmem_get_pfn() does not massage the error code, and if the
error is not -EFAULT or -EHWPOISON, userspace implementing the ABI fails to
detect the memory fault exit.
Things get more complicated with kvm_handle_vncr_abort().
kvm_translate_vncr(), similar to gmem_abort(), prepares the VCPU to exit
with KVM_EXIT_MEMORY_FAULT and propagates the error code from
kvm_gmem_get_pfn(). Then kvm_handle_vncr_abort() does a number of things
based on this specific error code:
- If it's -EAGAIN, KVM resumes the guest. Note that KVM, when handling a
*host* fault on a guest_memfd backed VMA, retries the fault handling if
kvm_gmem_get_pfn() returns -EAGAIN.
- If it's -ENOMEM, -EFAULT, -EIO or -EHWPOISON, it returns to userspace
with 0 (success), meaning that, according to the documentation, userspace
will not detect the memory fault exit.
- If it's -EINVAL, -ENOENT, -EACCESS, KVM injects a synchronous exception
back to the guest.
- If it's -EPERM, KVM injects a permission fault.
- If the error code is something else, KVM resumes the guest.
Bring a measure of order to all of this by implementing the documented
behaviour. -EAGAIN is treated as an error, similar to the
__kvm_faultin_pfn() behaviour for an anonymous VMA.
Signed-off-by: Alexandru Elisei <alexandru.elisei at arm.com>
---
This has the potential to break userspace, hence the RFC tag.
I went back and forth on the fix. I cannot test any of this and I have no
context around the usage of guest_memfd. In the end I settled on strictly
implementing the documented behaviour.
Really not sure what userspace is supposed to do to fixup the fault if
kvm_gmem_get_pfn() returns -EAGAIN either.
Someone with more knowledge please chime in!
arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c | 8 +++++++-
arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c | 24 +++++++++++++-----------
2 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
index d089c107d9b7..ea6c96818fc6 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
@@ -1610,7 +1610,13 @@ static int gmem_abort(const struct kvm_s2_fault_desc *s2fd)
if (ret) {
kvm_prepare_memory_fault_exit(s2fd->vcpu, s2fd->fault_ipa, PAGE_SIZE,
write_fault, exec_fault, false);
- return ret;
+ switch (ret) {
+ case -EFAULT:
+ case -EHWPOISON:
+ return ret;
+ default:
+ return -EFAULT;
+ }
}
if (!(s2fd->memslot->flags & KVM_MEM_READONLY))
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c
index 883b6c1008fb..ef426c94daff 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/nested.c
@@ -1320,8 +1320,14 @@ static int kvm_translate_vncr(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, bool *is_gmem)
ret = kvm_gmem_get_pfn(vcpu->kvm, memslot, gfn, &pfn, &page, NULL);
if (ret) {
kvm_prepare_memory_fault_exit(vcpu, vt->wr.pa, PAGE_SIZE,
- write_fault, false, false);
- return ret;
+ write_fault, false, false);
+ switch (ret) {
+ case -EFAULT:
+ case -EHWPOISON:
+ return ret;
+ default:
+ return -EFAULT;
+ }
}
}
@@ -1401,23 +1407,19 @@ int kvm_handle_vncr_abort(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
switch (ret) {
case -EAGAIN:
+ case -ENOMEM:
/* Let's try again... */
break;
- case -ENOMEM:
+ case -EFAULT:
+ case -EHWPOISON:
/*
* For guest_memfd, this indicates that it failed to
* create a folio to back the memory. Inform userspace.
*/
if (is_gmem)
- return 0;
- /* Otherwise, let's try again... */
- break;
- case -EFAULT:
- case -EIO:
- case -EHWPOISON:
- if (is_gmem)
- return 0;
+ return ret;
fallthrough;
+ case -EIO:
case -EINVAL:
case -ENOENT:
case -EACCES:
base-commit: 7fd2df204f342fc17d1a0bfcd474b24232fb0f32
--
2.54.0
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