Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] KVM: SEV: Drop page refcount early in VMSA reload

[sashiko-bot@kernel.org]

Thank you for your contribution! Sashiko AI review found 1 potential issue(s) to consider:

Pre-existing issues:
- [Critical] A preexisting vulnerability in `sev_gmem_make_shared` allows a malicious SEV-SNP guest to cause a host kernel panic by transitioning a `guest_memfd` page to VMSA state. When the page is subsequently freed, KVM fails to reclaim it and returns the still-firmware-owned page to the host page allocator.
--

--- Patch [3]: [PATCH v2 3/4] KVM: SEV: Drop page refcount early in VMSA reload ---
commit 597ff1c52e82911967f2122ff1d77aa79a4a2d9b
Author: Ackerley Tng <ackerleytng@google.com>

KVM: SEV: Drop page refcount early in VMSA reload

This commit modifies the guest VMSA reload path for SEV-SNP vCPUs to drop
the page reference immediately after retrieving the PFN from guest_memfd.
This avoids holding the reference across MMU lock acquisition and prepares
for future changes. The page's presence remains governed by KVM's MMU
invalidation protocol.

> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> index b34b11d7f8fad..d3d620bc04dce 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
> @@ -4062,6 +4062,7 @@ static void __sev_snp_reload_vmsa(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, gpa_t gpa)
>  	 */
>  	if (kvm_gmem_get_pfn(vcpu->kvm, slot, gfn, &pfn, &page, NULL))
>  		return;
> +	kvm_release_page_clean(page);
>  
>  	read_lock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
>  	/*
> @@ -4076,8 +4077,6 @@ static void __sev_snp_reload_vmsa(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, gpa_t gpa)
>  	else
>  		svm->vmcb->control.vmsa_pa = pfn_to_hpa(pfn);
>  	read_unlock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
> -
> -	kvm_release_page_clean(page);
>  }

[Severity: Critical]
This is a pre-existing issue, but can this allow a malicious guest to
cause a host kernel panic?

Looking at sev_gmem_make_shared() in arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c:

arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c:sev_gmem_make_shared() {
    ...
		rc = rmp_make_shared(pfn, use_2m_update ? PG_LEVEL_2M : PG_LEVEL_4K);
		if (WARN_ONCE(rc, "SEV: Failed to update RMP entry for PFN 0x%llx error %d\n",
			      pfn, rc))
			goto next_pfn;
    ...
}

If an untrusted SEV-SNP guest modifies a guest_memfd page state to VMSA
using RMPADJUST, and the page is subsequently freed, rmp_make_shared()
will architecturally fail on the VMSA page.

Because the error is bypassed without calling snp_leak_pages(), the
firmware-owned page is returned to the host page allocator.

Could this lead to an RMP violation and a host kernel panic when the host
later attempts to access the freed page?

-- 
Sashiko AI review · https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260818-gmem-no-return-page-v2-0-5298f42d49bb@google.com?part=3