From: Fuad Tabba <fuad.tabba@linux.dev>
To: Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>, Oliver Upton <oupton@kernel.org>
Cc: "Will Deacon" <will@kernel.org>,
"Catalin Marinas" <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
"Joey Gouly" <joey.gouly@arm.com>,
"Mark Rutland" <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
"Suzuki K Poulose" <suzuki.poulose@arm.com>,
"Raghavendra Rao Ananta" <rananta@google.com>,
"Sascha Bischoff" <Sascha.Bischoff@arm.com>,
"Thomas Gleixner" <tglx@kernel.org>,
"Sebastian Ene" <sebastianene@google.com>,
"Bartłomiej Grzesik" <bgrzesik@google.com>,
"Mostafa Saleh" <smostafa@google.com>,
"Vincent Donnefort" <vdonnefort@google.com>,
"Vladimir Murzin" <vladimir.murzin@arm.com>,
"Zenghui Yu" <yuzenghui@huawei.com>,
"Zenghui Yu" <zenghui.yu@linux.dev>,
"Steffen Eiden" <seiden@linux.ibm.com>,
"Radu Rendec" <radu@rendec.net>, "Fuad Tabba" <tabba@google.com>,
kvmarm@lists.linux.dev, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v3 13/13] Documentation: KVM: arm64: Describe the ITS hardening
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2026 13:01:33 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261102130133.3684226-14-fuad.tabba@linux.dev> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261102130133.3684226-1-fuad.tabba@linux.dev>
Add the ITS hardening to pkvm.rst: why the hypervisor emulates the
host's ITS, and how protected mode differs from non-protected mode as a
result.
Signed-off-by: Fuad Tabba <fuad.tabba@linux.dev>
---
Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst | 32 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 32 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst
index b75bb8ad6f26d..1ebae35f8373e 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/arm/pkvm.rst
@@ -89,6 +89,38 @@ DMA isolation using an IOMMU
Status: **Unimplemented.**
+GICv3 ITS hardening
+-------------------
+
+Status: Host accesses to the ITS control registers are trapped and
+emulated by the hypervisor. The LPI configuration and pending tables
+remain under host control.
+
+The ITS reads and writes memory at addresses programmed by the host, so
+the hypervisor emulates the ITS control registers and command queue to
+ensure that the host cannot use the ITS as a confused deputy to write
+to hypervisor or pVM memory. The command queue, the ITS tables and each
+device's interrupt translation table are owned by the hypervisor while
+the ITS can access them.
+
+This gives rise to some user-visible differences when compared to
+non-protected mode:
+
+* Protected mode requires the hypervisor to take control of every ITS
+ in the system: KVM does not initialise with more than 8 ITSes, and
+ if the takeover fails the host is not deprivileged and
+ ``KVM_CREATE_VM`` returns ``-ENODEV``.
+* An ITS command or register write that the hypervisor rejects is
+ delivered to the host as a data abort.
+* The number of devices that can be mapped through each ITS is limited
+ by the hypervisor, and MSI allocation fails with ``-ENOMEM`` beyond
+ that limit.
+* Interrupt translation tables are page-aligned, so each device
+ consumes at least one page.
+* GICv4 is disabled: direct injection of LPIs is not available to
+ non-protected guests, and a guest saved with ``GICD_TYPER2.nASSGIcap``
+ set cannot be restored (``-EINVAL``).
+
Proxying of Trustzone services
------------------------------
--
2.47.3
prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-11-02 13:03 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-11-02 13:01 [PATCH v3 00/13] KVM: ITS hardening for pKVM Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 01/13] KVM: arm64: Donate MMIO to the hypervisor Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 02/13] KVM: arm64: Take host-registered MMIO regions at pKVM finalisation Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 03/13] irqchip/gic-v3: Disable GICv4 features in protected KVM mode Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 04/13] irqchip/gic-v3-its: Page-align ITT allocations under protected KVM Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 05/13] irqchip/gic-v3-its: Compute the wait target under the ITS lock Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 06/13] KVM: arm64: Share the ITS command field accessors with the hypervisor Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 07/13] KVM: arm64: Deprivilege the host under stop_machine() Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 08/13] irqchip/gic-v3-its: Add the protected-KVM takeover entry points Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 09/13] KVM: arm64: Emulate the ITS command queue Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 10/13] KVM: arm64: Take the ITS tables and restrict GITS_BASER<n> Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 11/13] KVM: arm64: Take the ITT for the lifetime of a device mapping Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` [PATCH v3 12/13] KVM: arm64: Reject ITS commands whose IDs are out of range Fuad Tabba
2026-11-02 13:01 ` Fuad Tabba [this message]
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