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From: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
To: kvmarm@lists.linux.dev
Cc: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
	Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>, Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>,
	Oliver Upton <oupton@kernel.org>, Joey Gouly <joey.gouly@arm.com>,
	Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@arm.com>,
	Zenghui Yu <yuzenghui@huawei.com>,
	Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
	Quentin Perret <qperret@google.com>,
	Fuad Tabba <tabba@google.com>,
	Vincent Donnefort <vdonnefort@google.com>,
	Mostafa Saleh <smostafa@google.com>,
	Alexandru Elisei <alexandru.elisei@arm.com>
Subject: [PATCH v3 31/36] KVM: arm64: Add some initial documentation for pKVM
Date: Thu,  5 Mar 2026 14:43:44 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260305144351.17071-32-will@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260305144351.17071-1-will@kernel.org>

Add some initial documentation for pKVM to help people understand what
is supported, the limitations of protected VMs when compared to
non-protected VMs and also what is left to do.

Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
---
 .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt         |   4 +-
 Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/index.rst          |   1 +
 Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst           | 103 ++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 106 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
index cb850e5290c2..c14d80204f88 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -3246,8 +3246,8 @@ Kernel parameters
 			for the host. To force nVHE on VHE hardware, add
 			"arm64_sw.hvhe=0 id_aa64mmfr1.vh=0" to the
 			command-line.
-			"nested" is experimental and should be used with
-			extreme caution.
+			"nested" and "protected" are experimental and should be
+			used with extreme caution.
 
 	kvm-arm.vgic_v3_group0_trap=
 			[KVM,ARM,EARLY] Trap guest accesses to GICv3 group-0
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/index.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/index.rst
index ec09881de4cf..0856b4942e05 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/index.rst
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ ARM
    fw-pseudo-registers
    hyp-abi
    hypercalls
+   pkvm
    pvtime
    ptp_kvm
    vcpu-features
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..8258c93bed6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+====================
+Protected KVM (pKVM)
+====================
+
+**NOTE**: pKVM is currently an experimental, development feature and
+subject to breaking changes as new isolation features are implemented.
+Please reach out to the developers at kvmarm@lists.linux.dev if you have
+any questions.
+
+Overview
+========
+
+Booting a host kernel with '``kvm-arm.mode=protected``' enables
+"Protected KVM" (pKVM). During boot, pKVM installs a stage-2 identity
+map page-table for the host and uses it to isolate the hypervisor
+running at EL2 from the rest of the host running at EL1/0.
+
+If ``CONFIG_PROTECTED_VM_UAPI=y``, pKVM permits creation of protected
+virtual machines (pVMs) by passing the ``KVM_VM_TYPE_ARM_PROTECTED``
+machine type identifier to the ``KVM_CREATE_VM`` ioctl(). The hypervisor
+isolates pVMs from the host by unmapping pages from the stage-2 identity
+map as they are accessed by a pVM. Hypercalls are provided for a pVM to
+share specific regions of its IPA space back with the host, allowing
+for communication with the VMM. See hypercalls.rst for more details.
+
+Isolation mechanisms
+====================
+
+pKVM relies on a number of mechanisms to isolate PVMs from the host:
+
+CPU memory isolation
+--------------------
+
+Status: Isolation of anonymous memory and metadata pages.
+
+Metadata pages (e.g. page-table pages and '``struct kvm_vcpu``' pages)
+are donated from the host to the hypervisor during pVM creation and
+are consequently unmapped from the stage-2 identity map until the pVM is
+destroyed.
+
+Similarly to regular KVM, pages are lazily mapped into the guest in
+response to stage-2 page faults handled by the host. However, when
+running a pVM, these pages are first pinned and then unmapped from the
+stage-2 identity map as part of the donation procedure. This gives rise
+to some user-visible differences when compared to non-protected VMs,
+largely due to the lack of MMU notifiers:
+
+* Memslots cannot be moved or deleted once the pVM has started running.
+* Read-only memslots and dirty logging are not supported.
+* With the exception of swap, file-backed pages cannot be mapped into a
+  pVM.
+* Donated pages are accounted against ``RLIMIT_MLOCK`` and so the VMM
+  must have a sufficient resource limit or be granted ``CAP_IPC_LOCK``.
+  The lack of a runtime reclaim mechanism means that memory locked for
+  a pVM will remain locked until the pVM is destroyed.
+* Changes to the VMM address space (e.g. a ``MAP_FIXED`` mmap() over a
+  mapping associated with a memslot) are not reflected in the guest and
+  may lead to loss of coherency.
+* Accessing pVM memory that has not been shared back will result in the
+  delivery of a SIGSEGV.
+* If a system call accesses pVM memory that has not been shared back
+  then it will either return ``-EFAULT`` or forcefully reclaim the
+  memory pages. Reclaimed memory is zeroed by the hypervisor and a
+  subsequent attempt to access it in the pVM will return ``-EFAULT``
+  from the ``VCPU_RUN`` ioctl().
+
+CPU state isolation
+-------------------
+
+Status: **Unimplemented.**
+
+DMA isolation using an IOMMU
+----------------------------
+
+Status: **Unimplemented.**
+
+Proxying of Trustzone services
+------------------------------
+
+Status: FF-A and PSCI calls from the host are proxied by the pKVM
+hypervisor.
+
+The FF-A proxy ensures that the host cannot share pVM or hypervisor
+memory with Trustzone as part of a "confused deputy" attack.
+
+The PSCI proxy ensures that CPUs always have the stage-2 identity map
+installed when they are executing in the host.
+
+Protected VM firmware (pvmfw)
+-----------------------------
+
+Status: **Unimplemented.**
+
+Resources
+=========
+
+Quentin Perret's KVM Forum 2022 talk entitled "Protected KVM on arm64: A
+technical deep dive" remains a good resource for learning more about
+pKVM, despite some of the details having changed in the meantime:
+
+https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9npebeVFbFw
-- 
2.53.0.473.g4a7958ca14-goog


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-03-05 14:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 63+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-03-05 14:43 [PATCH v3 00/36] KVM: arm64: Add support for protected guest memory with pKVM Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 01/36] KVM: arm64: Don't leak stage-2 page-table if VM fails to init under pKVM Will Deacon
2026-03-11 12:48   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 02/36] KVM: arm64: Move handle check into pkvm_pgtable_stage2_destroy_range() Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:15   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 03/36] KVM: arm64: Rename __pkvm_pgtable_stage2_unmap() Will Deacon
2026-03-11 12:49   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 04/36] KVM: arm64: Don't advertise unsupported features for protected guests Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:15   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 05/36] KVM: arm64: Expose self-hosted debug regs as RAZ/WI " Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 06/36] KVM: arm64: Remove is_protected_kvm_enabled() checks from hypercalls Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:16   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 07/36] KVM: arm64: Ignore MMU notifier callbacks for protected VMs Will Deacon
2026-03-11 12:50   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 08/36] KVM: arm64: Prevent unsupported memslot operations on " Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:16   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 09/36] KVM: arm64: Ignore -EAGAIN when mapping in pages for the pKVM host Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:10   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 10/36] KVM: arm64: Split teardown hypercall into two phases Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:22   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 11/36] KVM: arm64: Introduce __pkvm_host_donate_guest() Will Deacon
2026-03-20 12:38   ` Marc Zyngier
2026-03-23 14:55     ` Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 12/36] KVM: arm64: Hook up donation hypercall to pkvm_pgtable_stage2_map() Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 13/36] KVM: arm64: Handle aborts from protected VMs Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:22   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 14/36] KVM: arm64: Introduce __pkvm_reclaim_dying_guest_page() Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 15/36] KVM: arm64: Hook up reclaim hypercall to pkvm_pgtable_stage2_destroy() Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 16/36] KVM: arm64: Factor out pKVM host exception injection logic Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:12   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 17/36] KVM: arm64: Support translation faults in inject_host_exception() Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:12   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 18/36] KVM: arm64: Inject SIGSEGV on illegal accesses Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:13   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 19/36] KVM: arm64: Avoid pointless annotation when mapping host-owned pages Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 20/36] KVM: arm64: Generalise kvm_pgtable_stage2_set_owner() Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 21/36] KVM: arm64: Introduce host_stage2_set_owner_metadata_locked() Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 22/36] KVM: arm64: Change 'pkvm_handle_t' to u16 Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 23/36] KVM: arm64: Annotate guest donations with handle and gfn in host stage-2 Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 24/36] KVM: arm64: Introduce hypercall to force reclaim of a protected page Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 25/36] KVM: arm64: Reclaim faulting page from pKVM in spurious fault handler Will Deacon
2026-03-20 16:20   ` Marc Zyngier
2026-03-21  9:39     ` Marc Zyngier
2026-03-23 14:58       ` Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 26/36] KVM: arm64: Return -EFAULT from VCPU_RUN on access to a poisoned pte Will Deacon
2026-03-20 16:35   ` Marc Zyngier
2026-03-23 14:58     ` Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 27/36] KVM: arm64: Add hvc handler at EL2 for hypercalls from protected VMs Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 28/36] KVM: arm64: Implement the MEM_SHARE hypercall for " Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 29/36] KVM: arm64: Implement the MEM_UNSHARE " Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 30/36] KVM: arm64: Allow userspace to create protected VMs when pKVM is enabled Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:25   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-20 13:22   ` Marc Zyngier
2026-03-23 15:00     ` Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` Will Deacon [this message]
2026-03-11 10:25   ` [PATCH v3 31/36] KVM: arm64: Add some initial documentation for pKVM Fuad Tabba
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 32/36] KVM: arm64: Extend pKVM page ownership selftests to cover guest donation Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 33/36] KVM: arm64: Register 'selftest_vm' in the VM table Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 34/36] KVM: arm64: Extend pKVM page ownership selftests to cover forced reclaim Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 35/36] KVM: arm64: Extend pKVM page ownership selftests to cover guest hvcs Will Deacon
2026-03-05 14:43 ` [PATCH v3 36/36] KVM: arm64: Rename PKVM_PAGE_STATE_MASK Will Deacon
2026-03-11 10:26   ` Fuad Tabba
2026-03-11 10:07 ` [PATCH v3 00/36] KVM: arm64: Add support for protected guest memory with pKVM Fuad Tabba

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