[PATCH 6.18 166/198] KVM: SEV: Reject attempts to sync VMSA of an already-launched/encrypted vCPU

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-04-20T16:04:22Z

From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>

commit 9b9f7962e3e879d12da2bf47e02a24ec51690e3d upstream.

Reject synchronizing vCPU state to its associated VMSA if the vCPU has
already been launched, i.e. if the VMSA has already been encrypted. On a
host with SNP enabled, accessing guest-private memory generates an RMP #PF
and panics the host.

BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ff1276cbfdf36000
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x80000003) - RMP violation
PGD 5a31801067 P4D 5a31802067 PUD 40ccfb5063 PMD 40e5954063 PTE 80000040fdf36163
SEV-SNP: PFN 0x40fdf36, RMP entry: [0x6010fffffffff001 - 0x000000000000001f]
Oops: Oops: 0003 [#1] SMP NOPTI
CPU: 33 UID: 0 PID: 996180 Comm: qemu-system-x86 Tainted: G OE
Tainted: [O]=OOT_MODULE, [E]=UNSIGNED_MODULE
Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R7625/0H1TJT, BIOS 1.5.8 07/21/2023
RIP: 0010:sev_es_sync_vmsa+0x54/0x4c0 [kvm_amd]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
snp_launch_update_vmsa+0x19d/0x290 [kvm_amd]
snp_launch_finish+0xb6/0x380 [kvm_amd]
sev_mem_enc_ioctl+0x14e/0x720 [kvm_amd]
kvm_arch_vm_ioctl+0x837/0xcf0 [kvm]
kvm_vm_ioctl+0x3fd/0xcc0 [kvm]
__x64_sys_ioctl+0xa3/0x100
x64_sys_call+0xfe0/0x2350
do_syscall_64+0x81/0x10f0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
RIP: 0033:0x7ffff673287d
</TASK>

Note, the KVM flaw has been present since commit ad73109ae7ec ("KVM: SVM:
Provide support to launch and run an SEV-ES guest"), but has only been
actively dangerous for the host since SNP support was added. With SEV-ES,
KVM would "just" clobber guest state, which is totally fine from a host
kernel perspective since userspace can clobber guest state any time before
sev_launch_update_vmsa().

Fixes: ad27ce155566 ("KVM: SEV: Add KVM_SEV_SNP_LAUNCH_FINISH command")
Reported-by: Jethro Beekman <jethro@fortanix.com>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/d98692e2-d96b-4c36-8089-4bc1e5cc3d57@fortanix.com
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260310234829.2608037-3-seanjc@google.com
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

--- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
@@ -871,6 +871,9 @@ static int sev_es_sync_vmsa(struct vcpu_
u8 *d;
int i;

+ if (vcpu->arch.guest_state_protected)
+ return -EINVAL;
+
/* Check some debug related fields before encrypting the VMSA */
if (svm->vcpu.guest_debug || (svm->vmcb->save.dr7 & ~DR7_FIXED_1))
return -EINVAL;