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From: Michael Roth <michael.roth@amd.com>
To: <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>
Cc: <kvm@vger.kernel.org>, <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
	<berrange@redhat.com>, <armbru@redhat.com>,
	<pankaj.gupta@amd.com>, <isaku.yamahata@intel.com>,
	<xiaoyao.li@intel.com>, <chao.p.peng@linux.intel.com>,
	<david@kernel.org>, <ashish.kalra@amd.com>,
	<ackerleytng@google.com>, <lpieralisi@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH v2 14/19] accel/kvm: Don't default to private attributes for in-place conversion
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2026 15:48:34 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260908205236.838281-15-michael.roth@amd.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260908205236.838281-1-michael.roth@amd.com>

Without in-place conversion, QEMU can still access shared memory to load
initial state into guest memory prior to launch even if the GPA's memory
attributes default to private, since userspace is accessing a completely
separate pool of memory. With in-place conversion, all these accesses
would need to first be converted to shared, then back to private, since
the memory all comes from guest_memfd and only shared memory can be
accessed by userspace.

Additionally, with in-place conversion, the most efficient way to set
the default memory attribute state is via the presence/abscence of the
GUEST_MEMFD_FLAG_INIT_SHARED, which is handled in the guest_memfd
creation routine, so if future in-place conversion implementations wish
to set the default to something otherwise then this would likely not be
the right place to do so.

To account for that and avoid sprinkling these differences in behavior
throughout QEMU when in-place conversion is enabled, just default to
shared. This does not compromise guest security, since Confidential VMs
will necessarily enforce this via trusted entities, and simply generate
implicit page state changes if their default expectations don't match
KVM's. However, in most cases a guest will explicitly convert memory to
a particular state before actually using it, so even these implicit
conversion requests should be rare. If this ends up needing to be
changed for other reasons in the future, the guest_memfd creation is the
right place to handle it for in-place conversions.

Signed-off-by: Michael Roth <michael.roth@amd.com>
---
 accel/kvm/kvm-all.c | 21 ++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/accel/kvm/kvm-all.c b/accel/kvm/kvm-all.c
index fcb6f3bee9..ff07050935 100644
--- a/accel/kvm/kvm-all.c
+++ b/accel/kvm/kvm-all.c
@@ -1811,7 +1811,26 @@ static void kvm_set_phys_mem(KVMMemoryListener *kml,
             abort();
         }
 
-        if (memory_region_has_guest_memfd_private(mr)) {
+        /*
+         * Without in-place conversion, QEMU can still access shared memory
+         * to load initial state into guest memory prior to launch even if
+         * the GPA's memory attributes default to private, since userspace
+         * is accessing a completely separate pool of memory. With in-place
+         * conversion, all these accesses would need to first be converted
+         * to shared, then back to private, since the memory all comes from
+         * guest_memfd and only shared memory can be accessed by userspace.
+         *
+         * To avoid sprinkling these differences in behavior throughout QEMU
+         * when in-place conversion is enabled, just default to shared. This
+         * does not compromise guest security, since Confidential VMs will
+         * necessarily enforce this via trusted entities, and simply generate
+         * implicit page state changes if their default expectations don't
+         * match KVM's. However, in most cases a guest will explicitly
+         * convert memory to a particular state before actually using it, so
+         * even these implicit conversion requests should be rare.
+         */
+        if (memory_region_has_guest_memfd_private(mr) &&
+            !machine_require_guest_memfd_convert_in_place(current_machine)) {
             err = kvm_set_memory_attributes_private(start_addr, slot_size);
             if (err) {
                 error_report("%s: failed to set memory attribute private: %s",
-- 
2.43.0


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-09-08 20:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-09-08 20:48 [PATCH v2 00/19] guest_memfd: support in-place memory conversion Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 01/19] accel/kvm: Add helper for handling conversions of MMIO holes Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 02/19] accel/kvm: Fix kvm_convert_memory() calls crossing memory regions Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 03/19] accel/kvm: Fix handling of MMIO holes at start of conversion ranges Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 04/19] accel/kvm: Fix handling of conversion ranges with multiple MMIO holes Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 05/19] accel/kvm: Use dedicated helper for creating private-only gmem instances Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 06/19] linux-headers: Update headers for v12 of in-place conversion kernel support Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 07/19] accel/kvm: Add CGS option to control in-place conversion support Michael Roth
2026-09-09  6:20   ` Markus Armbruster
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 08/19] system/memory: Re-use memory-backend-guest-memfd inode for private memory Michael Roth
2026-09-10  8:39   ` David Hildenbrand
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 09/19] accel/kvm: Handle guest_memfd flags internally when creating instances Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 10/19] system/memory: Default to guest_memfd for RAM for in-place conversion Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 11/19] accel/kvm: Move post-conversion updates to a separate helper Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 12/19] accel/kvm: Re-order attribute notifications for in-place conversion Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 13/19] accel/kvm: Support shared/private conversions via guest_memfd ioctls Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` Michael Roth [this message]
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 15/19] i386/sev: Update SNP_LAUNCH_UPDATE for in-place conversion Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 16/19] i386/sev: Allow in-place conversion for SEV-SNP guests Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 17/19] i386/sev: Update CPUID failure handling for in-place conversion Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 18/19] accel/kvm: Disable discard " Michael Roth
2026-09-08 22:16   ` Michael Roth
2026-09-08 20:48 ` [PATCH v2 19/19] hostmem: Automatically select set guest-memfd=on " Michael Roth
2026-09-09  6:30   ` Markus Armbruster

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