Re: [RFC PATCH] arm64: mm: support set_memory_encrypted/decrypted for vmalloc addresses

Catalin Marinas
2026-04-14T16:46:20Z

On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 02:36:42PM -0700, Kameron Carr wrote:
> On Friday, April 10, 2026 4:06 AM, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > Could you give more details about the user of set_memory_decrypted() on
> > vmalloc()'ed addresses? I think this came up in the past and I wondered
> > whether something like GFP_DECRYPTED would be simpler to implement (even
> > posted a hack but without vmalloc() support). If it is known upfront
> > that the memory will be decrypted, it's easier/cheaper to do this on the
> > page allocation time to change the linear map and just use
> > pgprot_decrypted() for vmap(). No need to rewrite the page table after
> > mapping the pages.
[...]
> In this use case, whether to decrypt the memory can always be known at
> time of allocation, so a solution like GFP_DECRYPTED is an option.
>
> I think I found the hack you mentioned
> (https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/ZmNJdSxSz-sYpVgI@arm.com/). The
> feedback in Michael Kelley's reply covers the key considerations well.

Yes, that's the thread. It started originally as a GICv3 need
(eventually we went for genpool).

> He likely had netvsc's use of vmalloc in mind when he made the point
> "GFP_DECRYPTED should work for the three memory allocation interfaces and
> their variants: alloc_pages(), kmalloc(), and vmalloc()." His other
> points already cover the concerns I had in mind around handling errors
> from set_memory_decrypted()/encrypted(), etc.
>
> What is the current status of your proposed GFP_DECRYPTED implementation?
> Is this something you are actively working on?

Not really. But I've been looking at it again and I think it adds more
problems than it solves. A GFP flag would be passed down to
kmem_cache_alloc() and confuse the slab management if some pages are
encrypted, others not for the same kmem_cache (SLAB_NO_MERGE wouldn't
help). I wonder whether something like SLAB_DECRYPTED would work better
for this if we really need it (not aware of any user though).

Anyway, let's ignore slab for now and look at vmalloc(). I can see
hv_ringbuffer_init() using an explicit vmap(pgprot_decrypted()). While
you could do this, it might be better to just add a VM_DECRYPTED flag
and a few wrappers like vmalloc_decrypted(). It would call
set_memory_decrypted() for the allocated pages and use
pgprot_decrypted() for vmap. On vfree(), it will have to set the pages
back to encrypted. It should be fairly mechanical to do (or a 5 min job
for an LLM ;)).

--
Catalin